


Knew You Before

by purpleduvet (maga_nw)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, On Hiatus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 47,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maga_nw/pseuds/purpleduvet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The first time Derek climbed through Stiles’ window Stiles was thirteen and it was the middle of the day.<i></i></i>
</p><p>or<br/><i></i><br/>Stiles and Derek were (sort of) friends before the fire. A retelling of the first two seasons.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> I messed a bit with the show’s timeline for this. See below for details. Thanks to the ever wonderful Insomiak for editing!

The first time Derek climbed through Stiles’ window Stiles was thirteen and it was the middle of the day. Outside, people were talking, loud and animated and the smell of grilled burgers was making Stiles regret the decision to hide out in his room.

He didn’t like the crowd, the feeling of all those eyes on him, pitying him, so many people invading his backyard, all his secret hideouts violated. So he was burrowed down in his bed, chewing on his nails when he heard a huff and a thump somewhere in his room. 

“I can tell you’re under there,” a soft voice said and Stiles took a peek from under the covers. Derek Hale was standing by the window, all long limbs and awkward pose, like he was stuck between putting his hands on his hips and crossing his arms over his chest. His face was as blank as ever. 

The Hales were a really big family that lived all together in one (admittedly giant) house somewhere in the woods. Stiles thought they were weird and that his dad always invited them over only because they were not cheap when it came to meat and drinks. And he guessed he also got along with Derek’s parents – or uncles, Stiles wasn’t sure how that family worked.

“Why are you in my room?” Stiles asked, refusing to leave his cocoon of blankets.

“They were playing hide and seek,” Derek said and Stiles snorted.

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing hide and seek?” Being surrounded with his bed covers made him feel brave and bold, so when Derek (who was older and taller and stronger than him) scowled, Stiles didn’t shut up like he probably ought to. “I don’t even play hide and seek anymore. I haven’t played hide and seek since I was like, nine. Gosh, you’re weird. And why are you hiding in my room, anyway? That’s gotta be against the rules.”

Derek was quiet a moment, like he was expecting Stiles to keep going, and when Stiles didn’t say anything else, he muttered:

“I didn’t say I was playing. If anyone’s hiding here, it’s you.” He snorted. “Except you’re too old and wise for that, apparently.”

Stiles frowned. He wanted to jump out of the bed at the implication that he was a dumb kid, but he didn’t want Derek to see he had gotten to him. So he did the next best thing, and calmly lifted the covers and slipped out of them and onto his carpet.

“I wasn’t hiding,” he said. “I was taking a nap. You’re breaking and entering and my dad’s a cop.” 

Derek looked more guarded now that Stiles was standing in front of him, probably afraid that Stiles would rat him out. It felt good to have something to hold over Derek, who was usually intimidating only for the fact that he was in high school and already looked like he had to shave twice a day. Stiles only shaved in hopes that something would start growing on his face, maybe just from the effect of the razor running down his smooth cheeks. 

“Your cop dad was asking for you.” Derek finally decided to cross his arms, and the position made his biceps look more threatening (in hindsight, Derek was only lean – if not a little lanky – but still better built than perpetually scrawny Stiles). 

“Well,” Stiles swallowed, taken aback. “Well, he shouldn’t throw parties on school nights.” 

“It’s only two in the afternoon.” 

“Yeah, so, I’m excitable. Ask my doctor!”

Stiles couldn’t believe he had just told a high school guy, who probably had a girlfriend and everything, that he was excitable.

Derek looked like he wanted to laugh. 

“Okay,” was all he said, mouth twitching. He looked around the room. Stiles was aware that his room was a little silly, he was in the process of redecorating but couldn’t bring himself to get rid of some stuff from when he was a kid. So it looked like he shared it with a six-year-old brother or something. He wondered if Derek had to room with any of his younger brothers or cousins or whatever they were. 

“How did you even get up here?” Stiles asked, uncomfortable with the situation. He was sure Derek had no sense of privacy because he had to share a single bathroom with fifty other people on a daily basis.

“Climbed up the garage.”

“What? How?” And more importantly, could he teach Stiles.

Derek only shrugged. 

“Are you some kind of mutant cat person or something?”

This time Derek laughed, only a short snort and flash of teeth, but it was something. Stiles relaxed slightly, it had been a while since he had managed to make someone laugh. The dark mood that had clouded the house for the last year was only starting to lift, so Stiles still felt unbalanced and guilty if he let himself forget he was supposed to be sad.

“Was my dad really asking for me?” He asked quietly, rubbing at his arm. Derek’s face went blank again and he nodded. “I guess I’ll go down there and have a burger.” He pointed a finger at Derek.“You’re not allowed to stay here alone.” 

“What, are you afraid I’ll steal your power rangers?”

“Those are collectibles and they’re going to be worth a lot of money someday!” Stiles snapped, his cheeks burning. Derek held his hands up and led the way downstairs.

\--

“Why do you even come to these things?” Stiles asked, shaking the controller in his hand as if that would help Mario run faster. “It’s all little kids and old people.”

“It’s something to do all together,” Derek said with a shrug. He was sitting next to Stiles on the floor, watching him play videogames. Stiles couldn’t understand how he could stand it, being that still, watching someone else have all the fun. “And I thought you weren’t a kid.” 

“I’m obviously not talking about myself.” Stiles wondered if Derek noticed the lack of action figures on his shelves. 

“Obviously,” Derek mumbled. 

The barbeques had become a weekly thing, and the Hales had become usual invaders of his backyard. Derek seemed about as thrilled about this arrangement as Stiles was, but they got along fine, he guessed. Derek didn’t shush him when Stiles felt like he couldn’t stop talking even if he tried, and he didn’t try to make conversation when Stiles popped in a movie or a game and zoned out for a couple of hours. 

“Why do you even throw these things?” Derek asked after a minute, imitating Stiles’ tone from before. Stiles resisted the urge to elbow him, he was still waiting for the day when Derek got fed up and decided to punch him or something for being a pain in the ass. 

“My dad,” Stiles said, his eyes not leaving the screen. “He wants me to socialize.” He saw Derek looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s reasonable that he’s worried, I guess. After last year, I’ll have no one to hang out with during the summer.”

“What happened last year?” 

“I was just…not very friendly, I guess. I took a sabbatical from people.” He thought that would make Derek do his little huff-laugh, but it didn’t work. If anything, he started to feel the side of his face burning, as if Derek’s attention had intensified. Stiles fidgeted, discretely scooting a little to the side and away from Derek. “He’s hoping I’ll make friends, he doesn’t want me to stay in my room for three months with nothing to do.” 

“You can do stuff on your own,” Derek said quietly, finally looking back at the game. Stiles let out a breath. 

“It’s easy for you to say, you have a house full of people. My dad works a lot during the summer.”

“Only one of my cousins is around my age, and we don’t get along.”

“I’m not your age and you hang out with me,” Stiles muttered. “We sort of get along.”

Derek’s eyes were back on him, Stiles tried in vain not to blush.

“You sound older, when you talk.”

“My voice is that manly?”

“No, not your voice. Just stuff you say.” Derek shrugged again and Stiles felt sort of proud. An older guy thought he sounded grownup. “Not everything.” Derek added when he caught Stiles looking smug. 

“It’s okay, you can compliment me, I can take it.” 

“Wouldn’t want your head getting any bigger.”

“Hey!”

School would be over in two weeks, and then his dad wouldn’t have time for barbeques anymore. He was always busier during the summer, always coming back with stories of bored teenagers vandalizing buildings or getting drunk in the woods. Stiles used to go to summer camp, when he was younger. He felt too old for that, or worn out, or something. He didn’t feel like he’d have the energy that year. 

“What do you do during summer?” He asked Derek, who seemed like he had zoned out himself. He snapped back to reality and cleared his throat. 

“Nothing,” he answered and Stiles rolled his eyes. “Hang around the woods, I guess. Um, hunt. Camp?”

“Alone?” 

“Sometimes.”

Stiles wondered if Derek had friends. He had started to doubt he had a girlfriend – he knew that if he had someone willing to make out with him, he wouldn’t spend his weekends playing videogames with a kid three years younger than him. Derek looked like the kind of guy that would be good at sports and had a lot of buddies and girls chasing after him. He was tall and tanned and handsome, every week a little more wide around the chest. His arms were a constant source of envy for Stiles. 

Derek was also quiet and sulky and odd, like the rest of his family, so maybe he was a loner at school. Maybe he sat alone during lunch and didn’t talk during class. Maybe Derek was a small fry in high school, maybe the other kids were even taller and broader and how was Stiles going to survive it if that was the case? 

“I camp with my uncles, sometimes,” Derek went on when Stiles remained silent. “And about once a month we go on hikes, my sister and my cousins, too.” 

“Mmh,” Stiles hummed, distracted, still freaking out. 

“Look, you can come camping sometime, if you want.”

“What?” He came crashing back to reality and turned to Derek. He realized he had been gripping the controller too tight, his fingers ached when he let it drop to his lap. On the screen, Mario shrank and died.

“Your dad would be happy, right? That his barbeques worked. We could camp around here, we don’t have to go deep in the woods.”

“You want to?” Stiles had to ask, because he didn’t believe it and he didn’t want Derek to do anything because he felt sorry for him.

“I wouldn’t ask otherwise,” Derek muttered and snatched the controller out of Stiles lap. 

Later, when the sun had gone down and Stiles and his dad were waving their guests goodbye from the front porch, Stiles watched Derek being surrounded by his family. Little kids clung to him, his sister walked close by. They disappeared down the road huddled together, and Stiles thought that whatever Derek had said about not getting along with them was crap.

The house felt cold, suddenly empty of voices. The idea of going back to his room alone made Stiles wish he could have gone with Derek’s family instead of being stuck in a place that was so quiet it was easy to forget it had ever held more than two people at once. 

“Did you have a good time?” Stiles’ dad asked once the front door was closed and locked. There were dishes in the sink, leftovers waiting to be put away. His dad was rolling up his sleeves and Stiles missed his mother so badly and so suddenly he dropped onto a chair with the force of it. 

“Yeah,” he managed to say, because his dad had his back turned and Stiles didn’t know what his face looked like – didn’t want his dad to see.

“The Hale boy doesn’t look like much fun. You could invite someone from school next week, if you wanted.” 

“Derek’s fun,” Stiles said, feeling like he had to defend him even if he wasn’t exactly fun, not really. 

“Okay,” he didn’t sound like he believed Stiles, but didn’t push it. “What about Lydia Martin?”

“What about her?” Stiles’ ears burned. 

“Well,” his dad cleared his throat, soaping up the dishes. “You could invite her. Spend some time outside with us next time.”

“Dad,” Stiles whined. “I’m not going to ask Lydia to a barbeque.”

He couldn’t even imagine Lydia holding a hamburger – if Stiles was ever going to ask her to have dinner with him, he was going to take her to some place fancy. One of those restaurants with too many knives and forks beside the plates and napkins that weren’t paper. 

He couldn’t even imagine her in the same space as the Hales – her purple flats getting muddy in his yard, Derek staring her down and cataloguing every reason why she was out of Stiles’ league. 

“We could have her over for dinner, just us,” his dad offered and that was even worse. The thought of Lydia sitting at their table, no one knowing what to say, his dad serving his poor excuse of mac and cheese made Stiles’ stomach drop. 

“She doesn’t even know I’m alive, Dad,” he said and then cringed at his poor choice of words. He closed his eyes before he could see his father’s reaction. “I’m tired.” 

Glasses clinked in the sink.“Go to bed, son.” 

-

When the school year ended, Stiles felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He felt drained, like he could spend the entire summer sleeping and that would still not be enough rest. His first day of vacation was spent dozing off in bed under the fan, reading comic books in his boxers.

Of course, after three days, Stiles felt like he would crawl out of his skin he was so bored. School had offered a good distraction: studying. He had read more than was asked for him the last year, adding notes and extra information in his exams that he felt his teachers barely even glanced at – just scribbled an A and a note to keep the babbling to a minimum on the top of his pages. 

Now, though. Now he was desperate. 

His dad wasn’t a reader, and Stiles wouldn’t dare to touch his mother’s books, afraid that if he took one out of a shelf, he would never be able to put it back exactly right. He had a limited collection of comics and a tight budget (his dad gave him ten bucks every Friday, but he was saving for a computer for his room). Going to town felt like too much effort, starting with the fact that he would have to put on pants to go out, and TV didn’t feel right during what were usually school hours. 

He wished absently for Derek’s phone number, but then figured Derek was probably out anyway. 

He was imagining him hanging out with friends, wondering if he laughed around them and what they talked about, when there was a knock on his window. 

“God!” Stiles jumped in bed and sat up to find Derek half inside his room. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry,” Derek said but didn’t look it. He was wearing a tank top and board shorts that made Stiles feel very small, especially because he was just in his underwear and it had been a long time since he had managed to get a tan. “I thought you heard me coming in.”

Derek’s eyes lingered on Stiles’ torso for a second too long before Stiles managed to find a t-shirt tangled up in his bed sheets, and by the time he had thrown it on (backwards) his face was on fire.

“You’re too skinny,” Derek announced and then finished breaking into Stiles’ room, landing gracefully on the floor.

“Shut up,” Stiles mumbled and started looking for his jeans.

They stared at each other until Derek huffed and looked away. “I just…you finished school. Right?”

Stiles frowned, “Well, it’s Thursday and I’m here, so.”

He was still shaken and embarrassed. He wasn’t shy, but Derek was an expert at making Stiles feel like a little kid and he hated feeling weak. His arms were over his chest, crossed so tightly that he probably looked ridiculous. 

Whatever Derek had come to say, it seemed like he was losing his nerve, visibly shrinking back into his usual slouch. Stiles refused to feel bad about it. 

“I was thinking,” he began, itching to break the tension. “I was thinking that you were probably out with friends or something. And that I didn’t have like, your number. Or whatever.”

Derek relaxed, something around his eyes going soft. 

“You were going to call me?” One of his eyebrows went up. 

“I’m bored,” Stiles cried and fell backwards onto his bed. “There’s nothing to do and you’re my only link to the outside.” 

“You could go out, you know.” Stiles heard Derek moving around the room but kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. 

“Psh, fresh air is overrated. I just missed having someone to admire my gaming skills.”

“Am I that someone in this picture?” Derek asked, and he sounded close. Stiles rolled his head on his pillow and met Derek’s eyes. He was standing near the door, leaning on the wall. “Because I don’t remember admiring anything.” 

“Shut up, you admire the hell out of me.” 

Stiles’ dad was only a little surprised to find Derek in his room that night, and he invited him to dinner, but Derek refused, claiming he had to go home. Stiles could tell his dad wanted to ask what they were doing all day, but allowed Stiles to distract him with questions about work. 

For the following weeks, Derek appeared at Stiles’ window about twice a week, and Stiles put all his questions about Derek’s motives at the back of his head and concentrated on enjoying the company. The idea of leaving his house still bothered him. He liked being home when his dad called from downstairs after work, he liked wandering around each room when he was alone, fingers trailing on the chairs and the pictures on the walls. He liked when he looked up from his desk to find Derek climbing in through his window, like it was no effort at all. 

He didn’t want to think about Derek’s reasons for wanting to be there, wouldn’t let himself think how improbable it was that the guy genuinely wanted to. 

A month into summer vacation the heat was unbearable. The fan above Stiles’ bed was only pushing warm air around, and turning the pages of his new comic was too much effort.

When Derek arrived, Stiles didn’t even consider moving to cover his bare stomach.

“There’s a new ice-cream place near my school,” Derek announced as greeting. 

Ice-cream sounded amazing, actually. Stiles groaned as he rolled over to his side to look at Derek. It was the first time he saw the other boy sweating. He wondered if Derek had walked all the way there like he usually did or had gotten a ride from his sister (he had told Stiles he was in the process of getting his license and that his sister offered rides in exchange of chores).

“I’m broke,” Stiles moaned. He had a grand total of two dollars of spending money after his new batch of comic books. 

“My treat.” 

Stiles sat up on his elbows and stared. He wasn’t sure if the heat was clearing his head of clouding it, but suddenly something clicked and he glared at Derek, realization dawning on him. 

“My dad put you up to this, didn’t he?” 

He was disappointed that he hadn’t come to that conclusion earlier, of course his father would. He was friends with Derek’s parents – Stiles could hear him perfectly in his head, asking them to make Derek spend time with him so he wouldn’t turn into a hermit, holed up in his room all alone, forever.

“What,” Derek said, a scowl on his face. It was hot, neither of them were in the mood to argue but Stiles wasn’t in the mood to play dumb, either. 

“I bought the act during the barbeques, but there’s no way you have nothing better to do than to buy me ice-cream.” 

Derek glared at him, his eyes hardening.

“I mean, even if we were the same age, you and I sort of…don’t fit. Kids like you want nothing to do with me at school, when they have no other choice than to share a classroom everyday. Why would you willingly waste your day putting up with me unless it was your job or something?” 

Stiles was starting to make himself feel bad, but he refused to let it show. Derek only stared at him, looking increasingly angry. 

“I mean, I know I’m awesome,” Stiles said, if only to give himself a metaphorical pat on the back. “It just seems to escape everyone else’s notice.”

“Stiles,” Derek finally said, low. “Shut up and come outside. You’re standing to sound crazy.”

“No.”

Derek huffed, shoulders slumping.

“Fine.”

For a second Stiles thought Derek was about to either hit him or pick him up and force him out the door, but he just walked back to the window and freaking leaped out of it. 

Stiles cried out and scrambled out of bed. He expected to see Derek down on the driveway outside his window, lying on the ground with a broken leg or neck. 

It was empty. 

He hurried downstairs and burst out of his house sweating and barefoot, fear knotting in his chest like a fist. But again, Derek wasn’t there.

The asshole appeared an hour later, back at his window and carrying a bag of ice-cream for both of them, not a scratch on his stupid body. Stiles wanted to punch him in the face.

He accepted the ice-cream.

-

“You’re bigger,” Stiles said one afternoon. 

Over the course of the summer, Derek had developed this obsession with sitting as close to Stiles as he could, no matter how hot it was. By the end of an afternoon playing videogames on the floor, their arms tended to be stuck together with sweat. It was pretty gross.

“Your arm is like, covering more of mine than usual.” 

Derek hummed a response that could mean absolutely anything and Stiles sighed. 

“I wish my arms were bigger.”

“Maybe if you went outside and played sports or something,” Derek said, because he used any excuse he had to remind Stiles that he was a weirdo for not wanting to leave his house. 

“Do you play sports?”

“I do stuff besides sitting on my ass all day.”

“Hey, that was uncalled for.” Stiles unstuck his arm from Derek’s and shuffled away. “It’s too hot for stuff, anyway.”

Stiles was actually starting to worry about the side effects of being cooped up constantly and in that kind of heat. He had been thinking about it the night before, but then he had been distracted by a bead of sweat running down his back and had lost his train of thought. It wasn’t unusual for that to happen, but lately he couldn’t concentrate on anything. His head was a jumbled mess most of the time. 

“You mentioned camping once,” he told Derek and watched him lower the control down and turning to look at him. 

“Yes,” he said, cautious. Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“Well, I might be swayed into that.”

“Yeah?”

Stiles nodded, playing it cool. He’d spend the night out of his house for the first time in a year, no big deal. Everything had managed to stay the same all this time, one night away wouldn’t change that. 

“When?” Derek dropped the control and turned until he was facing Stiles completely. 

“The day after tomorrow,” Stiles replied after considering for a moment. He thought he’d be ready in two days. Derek looked doubtful. “What?” 

“Nothing, I’ll just have to change plans.”

“What plans?” Stiles asked. It was weird for Derek to share what he did when he wasn’t at Stiles’ house. He told stories about his family sometimes, most things didn’t make much sense to Stiles, like all the weird traditions they had, all the things they did together even if they saw each other every day. 

Stiles could see the muscles on Derek’s jaw tightening before he answered, “I have a date.”

Stiles gaped. 

“Don’t tell your father. No one in my family knows.”

“Why?” Stiles asked, narrowing his eyes. Derek had made perfectly clear how close everyone was in his family. Something didn’t sound right about him hiding things from them. “Who is she? Or is it a he? Is that why you can’t tell? Because you shouldn’t have to hide who you are, you know. I’m sure your family would be cool with you…liking whomever you liked.” 

Derek had a weird look on his face now, and Stiles was afraid he had said something wrong for a moment before he saw the guy was actually trying to bite down a smile. 

“It’s a she, actually, but that was really inspiring,” he said. “Is your dad as open minded as you?”

“I’ll have you know my parents are really open minded and would be happy to welcome the person I like into the house no matter how manly or womanly they were.” Stiles stuttered, thinking back on what he’d said. Sure his parents had been open minded, but it was really just his dad who had a say now. “I mean, I’m sure my dad would be happy someone likes me, anyway.”

Derek rolled his eyes, he didn’t usually indulge Stiles when he was in self-loathing mode. 

“But, don’t- don’t cancel on her. Hoes before bros. Or before this bro, in any case. We can go camping next week. And as long as we’re keeping secrets, don’t tell my dad I used the word hoe.”

“Next week’s no good, I’m…I’m going hiking. With my cousins, remember?” 

“Oh.” Stiles was equal parts disappointed and relieved. “It’s okay, we can go camping some other time.”

Derek looked like he was about to argue and Stiles interrupted before he could.

“Seriously, if a girl wanted to go on a date with me, I’d ditch you in a second. So you don’t have to feel bad,” he rambled. “Besides, it’s probably healthy that you’re going to do something with someone your own age, no offence.” 

“She’s older, actually,” Derek said, a little smug. 

“How much older?” 

“A couple of years.”

“Is that why you can’t tell your parents?” Stiles asked, refusing to be impressed. He had always thought Derek had to be seeing someone (if he wasn’t, then Stiles definitely had no chance) and Stiles didn’t get why it was such a surprise or why it made him feel…fidgety.

“Just don’t tell your dad,” Derek snapped, looking like he regretted saying anything. 

“Okay, fine, sheesh.” Stiles pulled his knees up to his chest. “You’d think having a girlfriend would improve your mood.” 

“Sorry….” Derek mumbled.

It hadn’t escaped Stiles the way Derek had to visibly hold down his temper sometimes. It wasn’t often, but he could get bitchy about some of the stupidest things. Like is Stiles had decided he didn’t feel like showering for a couple of days (hey, it was vacation), or if he let the microwave reach zero and start beeping the few times they had warmed something to eat. Derek would usually recoil after snapping, apologizing quietly and backing off, shamefaced. It left Stiles’ heart pounding for a while after an outburst, because Derek was big and getting bigger every day, and Stiles was a shrimp. 

“Just don’t go snapping at this girl like that or you’re gonna get slapped,” Stiles muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Derek said again and Stiles sighed. 

“We’ll see about camping some other time, don’t worry.”

And that was it. 

Derek started to show up at Stiles’ room less and less after that. He was dating this mystery girl, and it was apparently a full-time deal. When he did show up, he was usually distracted but in a good mood, so Stiles didn’t care much.

He was starting to go a little crazy when he was alone, though. He wished he had made Derek skip on that first date when he’d had the chance, because he didn’t want to be outside by himself. His father looked worried all the time, sending him concerned glances over dinner and when he had to go to work. 

“You could come to the station, spend the day,” he offered once in a while but Stile always refused. He shuddered at the idea of leaving his house all alone for an entire day.

By the time school started again, Stiles only saw Derek once every other week, if he was lucky. They played video games and ate ice-cream from the place Derek liked and never talked about Derek’s girlfriend, though Stiles knew Derek was thinking about her all the time.

Then Scott moved to town. 

His parents had just gotten divorced and he had moved to Beacon Hills with his mother. He was a bit dull, had severe asthma and was just about as skinny as Stiles. They paired them up for science class on their first day and were pretty much glued at the hip ever since. 

Suddenly Scott spent the night at Stiles’ house every other day – they talked about girls and sports neither of them played (but wanted to) like they were both experts. Stiles lent Scott his comic books and Scott gave Stiles a bunch of videogames he couldn’t play because he didn’t have an x-box anymore (apparently his dad was a bit of an asshole). 

Derek never showed up when Scott was around but somehow knew about him anyway, because he asked Stiles about what they did the first time he came over after Scott had spent the night. 

“Oh, we play videogames, mostly,” Stiles told him, a tiny part of him hoping he would make Derek jealous. Derek did look annoyed and he spent that first day pacing Stiles’ room and touching things at random. Stiles let him be and invited him for dinner. It was the first time Derek said yes.

Stiles asked his dad if he had seen Derek around town, maybe with a girl, but he hadn’t. He said he almost always saw Hales hanging out with other Hales. He usually spotted Laura, Derek’s older sister, walking around alone, but never Derek. 

He wondered where Derek went with his girlfriend. If his family was still in the dark, then he wasn’t taking her home. Stiles hoped Derek wasn’t making some poor girl wander around the woods every afternoon. That was just rude.

“I only ever see him when he’s here,” Stiles’ dad told him. “And he hasn’t been much lately.”

Even when summer break was over, his dad had stopped throwing his weekly barbeques. Stiles suspected he was satisfied now that Scott was around, but Derek had mentioned something about some family matters that were keeping everyone busy, so maybe that was it.

After Christmas that year, the first time Stiles spent the night away from his house, he had a panic attack in Scott’s bathroom. 

He sat against the door, hands over his eyes, and tried to breathe, to calm down, to think straight. Everything was okay – his father was at home, probably watching TV, maybe already sleeping. Alone, all alone in that house, Stiles was away, having fun and his dad was all alone. 

Scott’s mother knocked on the door a while later, and Stiles couldn’t get his voice to work to tell her that he was okay, so he let her in and she talked him down. Scott lingered by the door, looking worried and holding a glass of water as Stiles calmed. 

They let him call his father afterwards and Stiles was only a little embarrassed when it was over and he was still shivering. 

“You scared the crap out of me, dude,” Scott said later, whispering in the dark of his room. “You looked like you were dying.” 

“Sorry,” Stiles said, and missed his bed and the noises his dad made downstairs and looking at his window, hoping Derek would appear. “I guess it was pretty scary.”

“Yeah.” Scott was quiet a moment. “You need my mom to take you home? Because she said she would, if you wanted.” 

Stiles took a breath. “Nah, I’m good.” 

He didn’t sleep well – his dreams were filled with bad memories, all twisted up and darker than they were when he was awake. He woke up half out of the sleeping bag he was in, Scott snoring softly above him. It was still dark out. The moon was high in the sky, Stiles could see it from the floor, round and white, casting strange shadows around the room. 

He got up, he wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon. He could still see the faces from his nightmare behind his eyelids every time he blinked. 

He walked to the window, tripping over Scott’s shoes on the way. It looked out to the back yard and the woods beyond. Everything was still, not even the tree tops swayed with the wind. Stiles stared ahead, eyes and lungs stinging. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but at some point he was sure he heard some distant howling. But it couldn’t be – there were no wolves in California.

-

Derek didn’t show up for two months. 

Stiles had just given up on glancing at his window every five seconds while he did his homework when he appeared again, slipping into his room like no time had passed at all. 

“You’re alive,” Stiles told him, looking down at his textbook. His bangs got into his eyes and he blinked, annoyed. He was due for a haircut. 

Derek didn’t apologize, and Stiles didn’t expect him to. They weren’t…they didn’t owe each other explanations, if Derek wanted to disappear for months without saying anything then Stiles wasn’t going to give him hell for it. Not much anyway.

“I was starting to think your girlfriend had kidnapped you or something,” he said, keeping his tone conversational.

“Things came up,” Derek said and Stiles bit his lip, tried to keep it in but….

“I don’t need to know about your sex life, Derek.” And then he giggled like a little kid and Derek snorted and it really was like no time had passed at all.

Stiles finished his work and put on one of the games Scott had given him. He spent the following hour filling Derek in about what he’d been up to. He told him about school and about Lydia and Jackson going steady (though he didn’t think it was going to last, Lydia was better than that) and about how he stayed over at Scott’s almost once a week (though he didn’t tell Derek that he needed to check in with his dad before going to sleep or he wouldn’t be able to stop turning in bed).

Derek hummed to show he was listening once in a while, eyes trained on the TV until Stiles ran out of things to say and just sat in silence for a while.

Stiles wasn’t going to admit it out loud, but he had missed Derek’s company. He liked spending time with Scott, but they almost never had quiet moments like this. Stiles was almost afraid that Scott would get bored with him eventually, so he was always filling the silence with random chatter. 

Derek was different. They hadn’t been paired up in science. They weren’t the only two awkward kids in a school full of overgrown sport fanatics. Derek had actually chosen to spend time with him. Like, on purpose. Going out of his way to keep him company when Stiles couldn’t bear the thought of being more than twenty yards away from his house. 

Who cared if Derek decided he’d rather make out with his girlfriend than play videogames with Stiles for a few months? He had come back, and that was all Stiles cared about.

When Derek brought up camping, Stiles barely even stopped to think before answering that yes, he wanted to go camping, it was about time Derek asked.

-

The following week, Stiles was panting up a hill, stumbling over rocks and roots sticking out from the earth. Derek walked ahead of him, as calmly as if he was walking through his own living room. Stiles glared at his back and tripped over a branch, nearly face planting on the ground. 

“Why am I carrying the tent?” He called, out of breath. 

“You’re the one who needs the exercise,” Derek said over his shoulder. Stiles glared at his back, feeling the usual sting of jealousy over Derek’s muscles and general handsomeness. He gripped the tent bag against his chest and huffed out a breath. 

“Where’re we going anyway?” He asked, trudging along, trying not to trip again. 

“Just half a mile up this way,” Derek said and Stiles groaned.

“What’s wrong with right here?”

“You’ll see.”

Stiles grumbled the rest of the way. He was too tired to complain at his full voice, and half afraid that Derek would get fed up and call the whole thing off. He didn’t want to go back to his house after he had spent the previous week talking his dad’s ears off about it. Still, every step further away from home felt heavier and heavier, and he had to keep palming the phone in his pocket every few minutes. 

“You could help me carry this thing,” he whined for the hundredth time. “What if I fall and break my nose or something because I couldn’t get my hands in front of on time?”

“Your dad would probably shoot me,” Derek replied casually and then stopped and waited for Stiles to catch up to him. 

Stiles’ dad had taken Derek aside before they left and gave him a fifteen minutes talk that Stiles had tried to eavesdrop in without success. He wondered if shooting Derek if something happened to Stiles had been a real threat or not. Derek didn’t seem too worried, though, letting Stiles do all the work. 

“You need to toughen up,” Derek told him after Stiles complained again. “You’ve been up in that room way too long, you’re all…soft and weak now.” 

“You sound like my dad,” Stiles muttered, low enough Derek should not have been able to hear, but then Derek bumped their shoulders together, so he guessed he had heard anyway. 

“Okay, here,” Derek said a few minutes later. Stiles dropped everything he was holding with a clatter and the fell on top of it with a grunt before he looked around.

“Why is this place any different than anywhere two miles closer to my house?” He asked, frowning up at Derek. 

“We’re right in between my family’s property, your house and the highway.” He pointed to each direction, shaping a triangle around them with his hands. “So, um, either way you go, you’ll reach somewhere familiar.”

“Oh.”

Stiles stood and turned in a circle. Everything looked exactly the same to him. Trees beyond trees beyond more trees. It was comforting to know that he just needed to walk a straight line and he would find civilization. If a wild animal didn’t get to him first.

“Actually we’re in my family’s property right now but the main house is that way,” Derek said as he rummaged through his bag. He took some pieces of cloth and tied a blue one on a tree branch. A red and yellow followed, each on a different tree. “Red one is your house, yellow the highway.” 

Stiles only stared.

“Also, we get pretty good cell reception here.”

Stiles was torn between feeling embarrassed he was being treated like a baby and being ridiculously grateful. 

“Are you planning on ditching me here?” He joked and managed to make himself nervous. Derek rolled his eyes.

“Start setting up that tent,” he said.

“What? Why me? I carried that thing all the way up here!”

“I have no problem sleeping under the stars, actually.” 

“Fine,” Stiles snapped and started working while Derek paced. Sometimes he would walk a few paces in the blue direction, point his nose up in the air and stay like that for a couple of seconds (sometimes Stiles forgot how weird Derek could be). Then he would come back and berate Stiles about his tent-setting skills, which were admittedly pretty pathetic but he didn’t need a reminder, than you very much. 

“You could do something useful instead of breathing down my neck, you know. You’re not making me go any faster.” 

So Derek started preparing a spot for a fire. Even Stiles’ dad, who handed tickets for irresponsible fires in the woods like free candy, would have been impressed by the amount of thought and care Derek put on the task. Stiles found himself staring and nearly lost an eye when the pole he was bending into the earth slipped from his hands and swung up.

“Jesus, let me finish that,” Derek said as Stiles rolled around on the ground. 

An hour later, they were sitting around a (very much controlled) fire. Stiles had called his father two times and he was as relaxed as he was going to get. His leg kept jiggling on its own accord, but there wasn’t much Stiles could do about that.

“You okay?” Derek asked and Stiles nodded. It wasn’t the woods that made him anxious. It was the fact that he was at least an hour away from anywhere, on foot. As the sun disappeared, Stiles kept catching himself checking for the red cloth, making sure it was still there and still visible. 

“It’s not like I never camped before,” he told Derek. “I’m an expert camper. Except for the tent making part, but we can’t all be perfect. I have to have a flaw.”

“Right.”

“Damn straight I’m right.” He glanced at the red cloth again.

Derek sighed. “There’s a flashlight in the tent.”

“I don’t need—” He cut himself off when Derek suddenly stood up, shoulder tense and eyes staring blankly into the distance, like he was listening for something. 

“Go get that flashlight,” he said. 

“What—”

“Go, Stiles.”

There was something in Derek’s tone, his voice going low and growly, that made Stiles scramble into the tent. He made no attempt to pretend he was looking for the flashlight, though. He just sat on his sleeping bag and waited.

Derek was quiet outside - Stiles could only hear the fire crackling and his heart pounding in his ears.

“What’re you doing here?” Derek asked after a few seconds and Stiles inched closer to the tent’s opening and peered through it. It was only Derek’s sister. Stiles felt like his spine was melting with relief. He had seen too many slasher movies to be completely at ease in the woods at night, even if they were in Hale property. 

“I was coming back from practice and smelled the smoke,” Laura said and glanced at the tent. “You’re not with her.”

“It’s just the Stilinski kid.” Derek had his back to Stiles and didn’t see the look Stiles gave him. He didn’t appreciate being called a kid by someone who was only three years older than him. Also, why was he hiding from Derek’s sister?

“Yeah, I gathered that.” 

She looked a lot like Derek. Her face was angular and her hair fell down her back in dark waves, the same shade as Derek’s. She probably didn’t use as much hair product as Derek, though. Stiles didn’t know anyone who used as much gel as him, except maybe Jackson sometimes. Laura’s eyes were brown, though. It made her expression as she stared Derek down at the campsite a lot harder. 

“Did they send you to check up on me?” 

“No, Derek. They trust you, they’re just worried. You’ve been acting strange for a while.” 

Stiles’ attention peaked. He didn’t know much about Derek’s relationship with his family. Not much further what he had witnessed at the old barbeques. And he couldn’t imagine Derek acting stranger than usual. He hadn’t changed around Stiles, except for the fact that he had gone practically missing for a while. 

“You should come home and talk to them,” Laura went on. Her voice was a lot like Derek’s: surprisingly soft. “Mom’s hurt.”

Stiles saw Derek deflate a little, shoulder slumping down. 

“Dad’s pissed,” he said.

“They know you’re hiding stuff from them. He thinks you’re taking him for an idiot.”

Derek scoffed. It was something very un-Derek like to scoff in a way that wasn’t mocking. Stiles wanted to see more of it. 

“He thinks that of everyone,” Derek replied. Laura raised an eyebrow – she looked like she could be Derek’s twin. 

“Now who does that remind me of?” 

Stiles had to stifle a laugh but he must have made some sort of sound, because Laura looked directly at him and winked. Derek actually growled. 

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Stiles called. “Except when you make me carry heavy things through the woods.” 

“Stiles—” Derek started to say, turning, and then froze. Laura snapped around, facing the same way as her brother. 

“You smell that?” She asked.

“Yes,” Derek said. “It’s big. Is it….” He trailed off and then Laura turned to him and Stiles fell backwards into the tent because her eyes were glowing blue. He made a strangled sound trying to say Derek’s name before the guy was turning towards him and his face…his face wasn’t his face.

“Derek,” Laura said and even her voice had changed, now no longer soft. “Derek, I think it’s the house.” 

She bolted past the blue scrap of cloth. 

Derek started to do the same, but stopped and looked back Stiles’ way.

“Go home,” he told him. “Leave everything here and get back to your dad.”

Stiles was curled into a ball inside the tent. He couldn’t move, his eyes were trained on Derek, unable to look away. 

“Stiles,” Derek snapped and it was a bark, almost. Stiles flinched and recoiled. Derek reached inside and grabbed his arm. He had claws. Claws that were slicing open Stile’s sleeve. He had fangs, long and sharp looking. His whole face had shifted to something far from human. 

“What are you?” Stiles asked and his own voice was changed, raspy and almost inaudible. His mouth was dry, he couldn’t swallow.

“Just go,” Derek, or whatever, whomever he was said. “Run.” He pushed Stiles away and tore off after his sister. 

Stiles stood in the middle of the forest until he snapped out of his shock. When he realized where he was, he was shivering with something other than cold. He felt dizzy and sick and he was far away from home. He whirled around, looking for a flash of red. Whimpering, he jumped back in the tent and found the flashlight. It was easy to spot the red cloth once the light was on, and he only spared the blue one a quick glance before leaving. 

He didn’t run. He walked, fast, and didn’t trip or lost his way once. He occupied his mind with keeping track of his steps, keeping his ears open in case someone or something was following.

It wasn’t until he was halfway home that he started smelling the smoke. 

-

His dad was at work. He’d left a note on the kitchen table in case Stiles came back. He was in the middle of reading it when his phone rang in his pocket.

Stiles fumbled with it and pressed it to his ear, but no words came out.

“Stiles?” His father asked and Stiles let out a shaky breath.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

It sounded like his father was driving, Stiles could hear the radio going off and another voice responding to it.

“Good, good. Is Derek with you?”

Stiles made a sound that was nowhere near an actual word and sat down on a chair. 

“Stiles,” his dad said, sounding worried and alert.

“No,” he managed to choke out. “No. What’s going on?” 

“Did he go back to his house?”

Stiles thought of the blue cloth, the way he and Laura had looked before running. “Yes. Dad, what’s wrong?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out. Stay indoors. I love you, son.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Stiles stumbled up the stairs drenched in sweat and covered in scratches. He had a sob caught in his throat that had been threatening to leave his mouth ever since Derek had turned around and wasn’t Derek anymore. He didn’t let it out, though. Not until he was safely locked in his room, buried under his bed covers, clutching his cell phone in his hand. 

He couldn’t tell his dad, what would he say to him? He couldn’t tell Scott, he’d think Stiles was nuts. There was maybe only one person that would have believed him, and she had been gone for over a year. Stiles had never missed his mother as much as he did that night.

-

When Stiles woke up the next day, still wearing his dirty clothes from the night before, the phone still in his hand, his eyes sore and swollen, the Hale house had been burned to the ground. Derek and Laura Hale were being held at the police station for interrogation. One of their uncles was in the hospital, his burns so bad they didn’t think he would live more than two days. 

They were the only Hales left.

-

Three days after the fire, Stiles went up to his room after having dinner alone. His father was still at work, and had only been at the house a couple of times to check on Stiles. He told Stiles what little he knew about what had happened in Derek’s house that night and updated him on Derek and Laura, who had been released that day, since Laura was eighteen. Stiles’ dad hadn’t been at the office at the time, and when he had gotten back the siblings had been long gone. 

Stiles was still shaky, still processing everything. He had attempted to go to school but everyone was talking about the fire and by lunch time he had been helped into the infirmary by Scott because he couldn’t freaking breathe. 

He needed to see Derek.

He wanted to make sure he was okay, had to see for himself that he was really alive and unharmed. He didn’t care about the claws and the fangs and the eyes, just wanted him to be in one piece. 

His room was dark when he got there, the air inside chilly. It took him a moment to notice the window was open, and he knew right away that he wasn’t alone. 

“Derek?” He asked the room, his voice broken. He slapped at his wall until he hit the switch and he blinked when the lights came on. Derek was sitting against the wall behind Stiles’ bed, his fingers buried in his hair, elbows on his knees. “Derek,” he said again and the crawled over the bed until he was kneeling in front of the other boy. Derek’s body was tense, Stiles wondered if he had relaxed for a second ever since the campsite. 

“Derek, I—I heard, my dad, he told me. I’m sorry, I.—”He babbled, holding onto Derek’s soot stained shirt, just spitting out everything he had thought of saying to him for the last three days until he ran out of words and just sat there, listening to Derek’s harsh breaths. 

“We’re leaving,” Derek said, his voice rough. Stiles nodded, sniffing. 

“Okay.” He was crying, he realized. “Where?”

Derek looked up then, finally. His eyes were dry but red rimmed, his face pale and clammy.

“Laura and me,” he clarified. “We’re leaving.”

“Okay,” Stiles said again, this time around a sob. “No, not okay.” 

Derek did his huff-laugh thing and it looked so painful, it made Stiles cry harder. 

“Are you coming back?” He asked. “Where are you going? Your uncle—”

“I don’t know.” Derek dropped his head again. Stiles scooted closer.

“You have to finish school,” he whispered. Derek was trembling, or maybe it was him, he couldn’t tell.

“I will.”

“Stay,” he pleaded.

“I have to go with my sister.”

“What if- what if you could stay here? Both of you?”

“We can’t.”

“But—”

“Stiles,” Derek growled, his eyes flashing blue for half a second, but Stiles didn’t cower this time. “We can’t.”

He was clutching at Derek’s shirt so tightly his fingers hurt, but he knew there was no way he would be able to keep him there.

“When?” 

“Tonight.”

Stiles let his forehead hit Derek’s shoulder. “My dad can help. He can find who did it. He’s working on it.”

Derek didn’t reply and they didn’t say anything else. 

-

Later, Derek was climbing out the window and Stiles was on the verge of another panic attack, he could feel it. 

“You need to calm down,” Derek told him and Stiles tried, but it wasn’t that easy.

“I’m sorry I freaked out,” he said. “In the tent.”

Derek looked at him for a moment, head tilted. “Anyone would have.”

Stiles shook his head. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Derek stared some more. Stiles thought that maybe if he kept talking, Derek wouldn’t leave. But before he could open his mouth Derek said, “Someone knew. About us, about my family.” His voice wavered at the last word. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Stiles said. He wasn’t used to keeping secrets, his dad always told him he was transparent. But he would, this time.

“I know who did it,” Derek said it like the words hurt coming out. Stiles swore he could hear the windowsill give in to his grip. “I know who started the fire.”

Stiles jumped up, heart pounding. “You need to tell my dad! He’ll help you, I promise.”

“No.” Derek’s eyes flashed again. “They’re dangerous. I don’t want you involved.”

“But what’re you going to do? When are you coming back?”

“I’m not,” Derek said and it felt like a knife being shoved into his gut, Stiles couldn’t even reply. “I’m sorry.” 

And Derek jumped out the window. 

It was a few days until the burnt wood smell cleared out of Stiles’ room.


	2. Season One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s not that Stiles is really interested in seeing a dead body (much less half of one)._
> 
> or
> 
> Stiles and Derek were (sort of) friends before the fire. A retelling of the first two seasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting around gathering dust for almost two years. Wow, I'm so sorry. 
> 
> It was wonderfully edited by Insomiak, all errors remaining are mine.

It’s not that Stiles is really interested in seeing a dead body (much less half of one), or that he stalks his dad’s phone and radio calls only for insight on interesting or violent crimes which are surprisingly abundant for such a small town and really, people should be more worried.

No, Stiles just likes knowing what his dad is up to. Not all the time, just when he’s out working and it’s the middle of the night and he’s patrolling unaware that people with fangs and claws exist and are living normal lives, attending barbeques and sneaking into bedrooms.

In any case, no matter how high the crime rate in Beacon Hills, finding a pair of legs lying in the woods is not normal, and since Stiles can pinpoint the moment his life ceased to be any kind of normal, it isn’t surprising that he can connect the events and needs to get to his dad ASAP.

After all, who’s the one with any kind of supernatural experience?

It took Stiles almost a year after Derek and his sister left to sneak downstairs to the family computer and start doing research. He wracked his brain trying to think of anything unusual Derek had ever done apart from what he’d seen at the campsite, but he couldn’t think of anything. Sure he was athletic, he climbed in and out of Stiles’ room without breaking a sweat, he never seemed to get cold – or maybe he just ran hot constantly. There really wasn’t anything Stiles could come up with that would narrow down his search. Either Derek was very good pretending or there wasn’t much more to his…condition than what Stiles had seen.

So Stiles had searched for creatures that could take human form, whose eyes shone like light bulbs and could rip through clothes with their claws.

The results were endless.

Stiles read about people who could turn into about any animal in existence, demons, vampires, leprechauns, mermaids. He stayed up nights and stayed in during weekends reading, only to be haunted by nightmares afterwards. After a couple of months, his searches became less and less frequent. What was he accomplishing anyway? Derek was gone, and no amount of knowledge on him or his family would make him come back.

So Stiles let himself be distracted by Lydia and how, um, well she was growing up and Scott and Lacrosse, the only team that Scott was interested in and that had miraculously let Stiles join. Neither of them actually played (Scott could barely run without going into respiratory arrest and Stiles tripped over his own feet more often than not), but they attended practice and got to wear the uniform and that was good enough for them.

It came to a point where Stiles only ever thought about Derek and the campsite after the odd (terrifying) nightmare, or when his father worked the night shift, which was increasingly often since they had promoted him to sheriff.

On those nights, Stiles would drift off sitting at the kitchen table, the radio buzzing a crackling next to him until dawn.

So when he overhears that someone found half a person under some bushes he jumps out of his seat and goes to Scott as soon as his dad is out the door.

Scott is like a safety blanket, really. He just makes the whole thing seem like a harmless adventure.

Of course Stiles isn’t counting on his father finding them out so fast, but it serves the purpose of getting him the hell out of the woods. He trusts Scott to get back home safely – they aren’t that far out of the road. He should have known Scott would get lost anyway. This is Scott, the boy who had gotten lost daily in Beacon Hills High during their first month there.

The bite, though. That’s something Stiles couldn’t have predicted.

He’s itching with the need to know more about it, and it unnerves him that Scott takes it all in stride. There is something about a bite, about it healing that fast that rattles something in Stiles’ mind, but he can’t…it can’t be.

They go looking for Scott’s inhaler even though every instinct in Stiles’ body is telling him to stay away from the place where there are things biting people, but his curiosity gets the better of him. Scott was incredible at lacrosse practice, something so out of the ordinary that even Lydia had seemed impressed. Stiles cheered even though that same doubt was nagging him at the back of his mind. Heightened senses, sudden athletic prowess – it all sounds way too familiar. So he jokes about it, about wolves and the full moon, and Scott brushes it off just like Stiles suspected he would.

Then. Then Derek shows up.

He doesn’t make a sound. One second Scott and Stiles are alone, kicking leaves in search of the lost inhaler, and the next Derek Hale is standing a few feet away, staring. 

Stiles doesn’t recognize him for a moment. It takes a second for the sight to sink in, and then it feels like the ground shifts beneath him.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asks but he’s not looking at Stiles. “This is private property.” His voice is still soft, though lower and more adult than the last time Stiles heard it. He seems to have gained a couple of pounds of muscle as well, but looks like he’s still fond of using an unnecessary amount of hair product. The leather jacket is new. Stiles can’t say a word, just stands next to Scott, hands in his pockets, waiting for recognition to cross Derek’s face.

But Derek barely even glances at him – he isn’t taking his eyes off of Scott.

“Sorry, we were just looking for something…” Scott stammers when Stiles fails to talk them out of trouble. Then Derek is throwing Scott his inhaler and Stiles manages to get out a weak “Derek” before they’re alone again.

“Dude,” he says to Scott. “Dude, that was Derek Hale.”

“Who?”

Stiles opens his mouth but he isn’t sure what to say. He never told Scott he knew Derek. They talked about the fire (after Stiles had stopped freaking out at the mention of it) but for some reason, Stiles had never felt like sharing much else with him. Scott had never asked why Stiles was so affected by the whole thing, Stiles isn’t even sure Scott made the connection between it and his panic attacks.

“Derek Hale, from the house…the fire, a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Scott looks back to where Derek walked off to. Stiles knows what’s in that direction. “I wonder what he’s doing back.”

-

Stiles tries to stop himself, he tries not to think too much about it, but it’s not long before he makes the connection between Derek coming back and the dead body. He refuses to believe both things are related, and heaves a sigh of relief when, the next day, he hears his father talking about evidence that the girl was killed by a wild animal. He has about two seconds to feel calm before he hears the word ‘wolf’.

“When is the Hale boy going in?” Stiles’ dad asks over the phone, and Stiles’ heart drops. He thinks about the last time Derek was brought to the station and wants to barge into the kitchen and beg his dad not to make him do it again. When he chances a glance, his father is already looking his way. He points Stiles to a chair, the phone still pressed to his ear. “Don’t keep him in too long, I’ll be there tonight.”

When he hangs up, Stiles has his head buried in his arms.

“Did you know Derek’s back in town?”

“I saw him yesterday,” Stiles mumbles. He keeps his face hidden, afraid he’ll give something away. Like his dad will take one look at him and see _werewolves_ written all over it.

His dad sighs. “How is he?”

“Bigger? I don’t know, he didn’t say a word to me.”

“Stiles, the body was found in his property. It’s standard procedure to ask him a few questions, even if he wasn’t around when it happened. I imagine he’s staying somewhere in town.”

Stiles hopes that’s true, but somehow doubts it. The idea of Derek staying at the Hale house makes him queasy.

“I’ll ask him to dinner if I see him tonight,” his dad goes on, patting Stiles’ back. At least he’s taking Stiles’ silence to mean he’s upset about Derek ignoring him, rather than him starting to believe Derek could be a murderer. Stiles doesn’t think his dad would be considering having Derek over for dinner if he could see everything going through his head right this second.

“Sure,” he says, knowing full well that Derek is not coming over any time soon, and leaves it at that.

Stiles imagined Derek’s return many times since he left. He made up scenarios where they ran into each other in town, or caught sight of each other at the grocery store. He even pictured Derek climbing into his bedroom like no time had passed at all. He didn’t know how it was going to happen, all Stiles knew was that when Derek came back (because he would, no matter what he had said), he would explain everything.

Derek did not explain. He barely even looked at him. And if there wasn’t a dead body involved, Stiles would be at Derek’s door right now, demanding freaking acknowledgement.

He loses track of time, sitting at the kitchen table, wondering how it’s going at the station, wondering if Derek is back alone or if his sister returned with him, wondering if something happened with his uncle and if that is why they’re back, and by the time he checks the clock, he’s late for the game.

Scott doesn’t listen to him when Stiles tries to tell him what he heard about the wolf DNA and Stiles has to watch him do things in the field that shouldn’t be possible. Everyone else is so stocked with the performance that they don’t seem to notice that the person providing the show could barely run down a set of stairs without having to catch his breath not two days before.

After the game, after Scott makes first line and goes off to celebrate or whatever, Stiles makes up some excuse and drives home.

He digs up every website, every article he ever read about supernatural creatures. He raids his mother’s library in search of legends, committing to memory the order the books are in so he can put them back later. He reads until the words blur in front of him, everything there is to know about werewolves. He’s not sure what’s true and what’s been changed with time, either to make tales scarier or better suited for movies. He just reads everything and highlights what he can relate to what’s happening with Scott and what he knows about Derek.

He reads about howling, and how it brings the packs together, and remembers that night years before, stumbling home from the woods in the night, smoke thick in the air, and tries to think if there had been howling then, distant and lonely, or if he’s imaging it.

When Scott shows up, Stiles is so doped up on pills and adrenaline that he’s twitchy and jumpy, hands trembling as he shoves papers and books at Scott, trying to make him understand fast, he has to believe him as soon as possible. Scott is a time bomb, he is cursed, anything can set him off. It’s a full moon, werewolves are cutting people in half, his best friend is a werewolf and he isn’t even the first he’s met.

Scott is having none of it.

He thinks Stiles is jealous, that he’s trying to sabotage him. Stiles is hurt, in a sort of distant way. His brain is buzzing with too much information – he can barely control what’s coming out of his mouth. He has no idea what’s going on, he wants to talk to Derek, hear him say that he isn’t a killer.

Scott won’t listen and Stiles goes for his phone. Screw trying to reason, though he can’t blame Scott for not buying the whole thing right away. If someone came to him with a tale like that he would laugh in their faces. But Stiles has evidence. Actual, ocular evidence, if Scott’s new abilities aren’t enough.

So Stiles grabs Scott’s phone, set on finding Allison’s number and force his friend to call the date off. Scott does not like it, just like Stiles doesn’t like being shoved into the wall. He sees Scott’s fist flying to his face and prepares for a blow, only Scott deflects it at the last moment and knocks over his chair.

“I’m sorry,” he says, stunned. Stiles’ heart is in his throat. He flinches back when Scott makes a move to get closer, he can barely control his body anymore. “I…I gotta go get ready for the party. Sorry.”

Stiles is suddenly drained of all energy. He needs to crash, but when he sees the claw marks on his chair, he knows he has to go after his friend.

-

The party’s packed, which isn’t a surprise since it’s Lydia’s after all. Stiles keeps to the front of the house, he wants to be in the way of the door. He can see Scott through the glass doors leading to the back yard. Derek is there, too. Stiles keeps catching glances of him, but he vanishes every time Stiles calls out to him. Stiles wonders if he’s losing his mind.

He’s on the other side of the room after trying to catch Derek when he sees Scott stumbling inside, staggering towards the door. He pushes his way to him, but by the time he makes it outside, Scott has already driven away and Allison is getting into Derek’s car.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, out of breath, and jumps in front of the car before it can start moving. Derek glares from inside, and wow, his eyes were nowhere that intense the last time Stiles was this close to him. “Wait, please.”

Derek doesn’t say a word. Stiles is afraid to step to the side, in case it gives him the chance to tear down the street.

“What’s wrong?” Allison asks, leaning out the window.

“Um, Scott,” Stiles says. “He asked me give you a ride home, because he wasn’t feeling good.”

“I have a ride,” Allison argues, though she sounds sort of relieved. Stiles thanks the universe for looking like a wimp, though he guesses it isn’t easy task to look more threatening than Derek.

“Derek lives all the way on the other side of town,” he says. “I can drop you off on my way home.”

“I can drive her,” Derek says, and Stiles is so glad Derek is actually directing words at him that he nearly agrees.

“I insist.” He meets Derek’s eyes through the windshield. Derek’s nostrils flare, Stiles refuses to back down.

“I think I’ll go with him,” Allison says, breaking the moment. She’s already opening the door and getting out of the car. “Thanks anyway.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Stiles pats the hood of the car and sees Derek’s glare harden.

“Go straight home,” Derek growls – actually growls, holy shit – after Stiles has stepped away.

“What?” Stiles asks, even though he heard perfectly fine. He just wants Derek to keep talking to him.

Derek sends him a look and speeds away. Stiles is left staring after him, the party still going full blast behind him.

“What was that about?” Allison asks.

“He’s just a little socially impaired,” Stiles explains and gestures towards his jeep. “Such a shame.”

Allison smiles, though sort of dubiously, and follows.

They’re already on her street when she notices she left her jacket in Derek’s car. Stiles promises to get it back for her.

Once she’s safely back in her house, Stiles goes to Scott’s. He lets himself in and climbs up the stairs two steps at a time, he can hear Scott grunting in his room.

“Scott, it’s me,” he calls through the door. “Let me in.”

He hears Scott panting on the other side, keeping the door closed no matter how hard Stiles pushes.

“Listen, you have to find Allison. Take her home—”

“She’s fine. I gave her a ride. She’s…she’s totally fine.” He thinks about Derek and wonders if she would have been fine with him, too. He wants to believe she would have.

“Stiles, I think I know who it is.”

Stiles closes his eyes, forehead against the door. “Just let me in and we can talk.”

“It’s Derek. Derek Hale’s the werewolf. He’s the one who bit me. He’s the one who killed the girl in the woods.”

“No,” Stiles says. “I mean yes, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t kill anyone.”

“It’s him,” Scott shouts. “He did this to me!”

“We don’t know that.”

“I saw him,” Scott pants, slams something against the door. If it was his fist, then Stiles is glad Scott didn’t punch him before because it sounds like he left a dent in the wood. “It’s him.”

“Listen, I know he’s a werewolf. I know, okay? But he wouldn’t…I don’t think he killed that girl, okay? We should think about this, we can talk to him.”

“I don’t want to talk to him, I want him to fix me!”

“Okay, we can talk to him about fixing you.”

Stiles read about bites, about what it takes to reverse the curse, and it isn’t even a sure thing. Just theories and legends. He isn’t going to tell Scott that now – not when his control is slipping.

“We’ll wait until after the full moon. We’ll figure it out.”

“I- Stiles, I can’t wait. I’m—”

There’s silence. Stiles presses his ear to the door. Nothing.

“Scott?” He calls as he pushes the door open, finding no resistance. Scott’s gone.

Stiles thinks about going after him, and plans on only sitting for a second before getting to it because his legs feel like jelly.

Five hours later he’s blinking up at Scott’s ceiling, a research hangover pounding behind his eyes. He didn’t so much fall asleep as he passed out.

He finds Scott wandering on the edge of the woods, half naked after he lost his clothes during his shift. Apparently he didn’t go full wolf, so Stiles doesn’t really understand why he needed to undress at all. But he figures that if his chest looked like Scott’s, Stiles would be losing his shirts more often.

He lets Scott have a sweatshirt he finds in the back of the jeep and drives them back to town as Scott tells him what happened the night before.

Apparently, they need to add werewolf hunters to the mix.

“Wait, Derek helped you,” Stiles interrupts Scott’s frantic tale of the unfairness of his life.

“Yes, but he’s insane. He kept saying the bite was a gift and how I should be grateful that my life is totally ruined and—”

“But he helped you,” Stiles repeats. “Without him, your head would be hanging above some crazy guy’s fireplace right now.”

Scott makes a face. “I guess.”

“Okay, just so we’re clear on that.”

The thing about Scott is that he has a one-track mind. Unlike Stiles, who can worry about a hundred different things at the same time, Scott chooses one problem and hangs onto it. And today that problem is, surprise surprise, Allison.

Stiles is tempted to follow through on his threat and punch Scott in the head when he insists on how the worst part of the whole thing is not that people are after him trying to kill him, but that he can’t make out with his girlfriend without shifting.

Stiles proposes he tells her the truth. That’s what he would have liked Derek to do in the first place. Not that he’s comparing their relationships or anything (though at least Stiles is not basing life-endangering decisions on his attraction to a girl he met like, three days ago). But he thinks it would be good if Allison knew that Scott could turn into a monster at any given moment.

Scott doesn’t like the idea of telling her the truth and Stiles lets it go for the moment and concentrates on trying to make him feel better. They’ll sort everything out.

Of course, it turns out that the hunter going after Scott and Derek is Allison’s dad because really, who else?

Stiles learned very young that when life decides to throw a wrench at you, it throws the whole freaking toolbox as well.

Stiles needs answers. Did Allison’s father recognize him? Does Allison know about it? Do they have a reason, other than him being a werewolf, for hunting him? It doesn’t sound very civilised to be shooting arrows at random wolf people just because. Scott doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to want to think about it, either.

Stiles can tell he’s out of it, but still sends him off to practice, telling him not to worry.

He’s sure Scott isn’t going to last much longer, that he’ll snap and attack someone at any moment. So, when he knocks Jackson to the ground, Stiles makes the belated decision to get him the hell out of there.

“I can’t control it, Stiles,” Scott pants once Stiles is crouching next to him. “It’s happening.”

Stiles drags him off the field and to the locker room. He realizes, too late, that cornering himself with a manic werewolf is not one of his greatest ideas and when Scott yells at him to get away and Stiles sees him shifting right before his eyes, suddenly everything feels more real than it ever had on his computer screen.

It’s the first time he sees the eyes (yellow instead of blue) and the fangs (somehow too big for Scott’s face) directed straight at him. It’s less scary than the first time he saw them on Derek, That is until Scott tries to kill him. It isn’t so much the changes on Scott’s face but his lack of control that terrifies Stiles. So he runs, keeping to the locker room so that Scott won’t be set loose in the school.

When he knocks over the fire extinguisher, he doesn’t hesitate on using it, spraying the thing empty on Scott. Stiles sort of feels like throwing the entire thing at him for good measure and he’s both relieved and panicked about Scott not remembering what the hell happened.

On one hand, Scott wasn’t himself while trying to bite his head off. On the other hand, he could black out any moment and try to do it again, not a smidge of conscience keeping him back.

“Anger,” he tells Scott. “Your heart racing. It’s a trigger. You can’t play on Saturday. You can’t do anything that makes your blood boil.”

But Scott is obsessed with being first line and with Allison, obsessed with having the life he envied of others for so many years of being invisible. Stiles is pretty sure Allison couldn’t care less about Scott being on the lacrosse team, but he isn’t about to tell Scott that. He also has to hold back from throttling him, mostly because he doesn’t want to lose a hand.

He sends Scott back to his house to finish cooling off and goes back to practice alone. Turns out Jackson has a separated shoulder, and Stiles searches inside himself to feel bad about him and can’t find a single bit of sympathy. He knows people who have it way worse than Jackson Whittemore.

The only thing that makes his heart sink about the entire situation is that now there’s talk about how Scott’s their only hope to win the game on Saturday.

His dad is at work when Stiles gets to his house. He calls the station and tries to talk someone into telling him the juicy news of the day, to no avail. Some people are just immune to his charms. He wonders how Derek is doing, how actively the hunters are searching for him. He makes himself a sandwich and spends some time watching cartoons, doing his best to turn his mind off for at least an hour.

Stiles puts it off for as long as he can, but finally makes his way upstairs and checks if Scott’s online. He acts as cheerful as he can manage, and tells Scott the news about Jackson and what it means for him. He’s about to start on a rant about how he still shouldn’t play when he sees something over Scott’s shoulder.

He opens a chat window and types _it looks like someone’s behind you_ and Scott doesn’t take the hint and keeps talking out loud. Then his eyes widen and he squints at the screen. Stiles watches Derek come out of the shadows and pin Scott to a wall, completely helpless in his room, a ten minute ride away.

Flailing, he turns the volume up as high as it goes in order to hear what Derek’s muttering in Scott’s ear.

“If they find out about you, they find out about me. About all of us. And it’s not just the hunters after us, it’s everyone.”

Stiles wonders absently what it would be like to live constantly convinced someone is breathing down your neck, waiting until you let your guard down to strike. He figures he would be slamming people into walls, too.

Then he hears Derek tell Scott that, if he plays in the game Saturday, he’s going to kill him. Stiles freezes. He doesn’t care if it’s an empty threat, hearing those words come out of Derek’s mouth makes his throat close up. They still don’t know who killed the girl in the woods (or who bit Scott, for that matter), and Stiles wants to believe Derek has nothing to do with it.

But Derek is making it very difficult for Stiles to keep trusting him.

“No killing anyone while I can see it, please,” he manages to say, his voice (and the rest of him) trembling.

Derek snaps his head in his direction, or Scott’s computer’s direction, and sets his jaw.

“It would leave me very traumatized and blood is very hard to get out of carpets and you don’t want to do that to Scott’s mom, she’s a very nice lady. Also, I could be recording all this and I would send it to my dad before you could make it over here to get rid of witnesses.” He pauses. “He’s the sheriff now, did you know?”

Both Derek and Scott look very put off. Then Derek lets go of Scott with a huff and disappears from the frame. Stiles guesses he leapt out the window.

Stiles takes a breath. “Are you gonna try to get out of playing now?”

Scott nods.

The next day at school, Allison finds Stiles between classes and thanks him for returning her jacket.

“How did you get it inside my locker, though?” She asks, her eyes accusing. Stiles mind reels. Scott told him Derek had lured him to the woods using Allison’s scent, it was probably him who returned the jacket. Maybe he’s even still around.

“Um, I’m an excellent lock picker, ask anyone,” he says. “But don’t worry, I only use my powers for good.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t look reassured. “Just, find me. Next time.”

“Sure, sure, of course. Sorry.”

God, now she probably thinks Stiles’ a creep. That’s just what Stiles needs, another girl avoiding him like the plague.

He’s mentally kicking himself after Allison walks away when he hears a familiar voice nearby. He rounds a corner and sees his dad talking with the principal. He can make out two words before the hallways are brimming with students and it’s sheer luck that makes him bump into Scott and have him listen in on the conversation.

Mandatory curfew until they find the animal attacking people.

It’s less exciting news than what Stiles expected, but it also means Derek’s still off the hook.

Stiles has conflicting feelings about that, especially after the night before and Derek ambushing Scott.

“We need to find the other half of the body,” he tells Scott. That way his dad will be relieved of the case and Derek exonerated. Maybe. Hopefully.

Later that afternoon, Scott sends him a text.

_i think i found something_

“I smelled a body. Blood,” Scott says when Stiles calls him. He couldn’t even wait until he was at Scott’s house to hear the news.

“You were at the house?” Stiles is pulled over by the side of the road, gripping his phone to his ear. “Did it looked…lived in?”

“What? That place is a wreck.” That’s not an answer to Stiles’ question.

“But Derek was there,” Stiles insists.

“Yeah, he was inside.”

“Okay,” Stiles says and puts that information in the back of his head. He concentrates on what they have to do. “You should smell the half of the body they already found. And compare scents.”

Stiles hopes, closing his eyes tight, that what Scott smells turns out to be some animal. He hopes the scents don’t match. He wants to find the rest of the body, but not buried next to the Hale house. Please not buried next to the Hale house.

“How the hell do I do that?” Scott asks, sounding grossed out.

Stiles has to remind him that his mother works at the hospital. All he has to do is to sneak into the morgue and take a whiff. Scott is stunned into silence. Stiles doesn’t see what’s so terrible about it, it’s for a good cause.

“Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, what else, right? I’ll drive you!”

Scott looks slightly green when Stiles picks him up, but doesn’t object to the plan. Getting into the morgue turns out to be so simple that Stiles considers writing up a complaint or something. People should not have so easy access to corpses. And he even gets to see Lydia, though the entire exchange is so embarrassing that Stiles decides to forget about it.

When Scott returns, he looks triumphant.

“It’s the same body,” he says in what he probably thinks is a hushed whisper. “It’s proof he killed the girl.”

“No,” Stiles replies, though he’s starting to doubt it. “But it might help us to find out who did.”

“What do we do now?”

“I’m not sure.” Stiles is practically skipping on the way back to the jeep. He feels giddy and nervous.

“We need to dig up the body,” Scott announces and Stiles’ stomach lurches for a few different reasons.

He has to admit to himself there’s a chance Derek did it. He doesn’t want to believe it, but he hasn’t seen the guy for years. For all he knows this could be the latest of a long string of murders. Derek appeared back in town the day after the body was found, fresh like the girl had only been dead for a couple of hours. It was found on Derek’s property. And the few times Stiles saw him, Derek acted odd and scary and gave Stiles few reasons to trust him.

Stiles sits in driver’s seat and sighs.

“Okay,” he says at last. “But we have to make sure Derek isn’t in the house when we do it.”

The sun is setting when they park the jeep halfway to the Hale House. They camp out until Scott says he can hear Derek driving away. By then it’s well into the night. Maybe he’s living in town after all – though what he did all day in the house if that’s the case, Stiles doesn’t want to know.

(Except he does, as long as it doesn’t involve anything dead.)

They drive up to the house, Scott eager to get started, Stiles eager to get the whole thing over and done with.

“Are you doing this because you want to catch the killer or because you want to play in the game and he said you couldn’t?” Stiles has to ask, because, as much as he loves Scott, his priorities have been sort of messed up lately.

Scott gives him an answer ambiguous enough that Stiles can start digging without feeling uneasy. Or any more uneasy.

“Something’s different,” Scott says as they make their way to a patch of dirt that looks freshly moved, but Stiles is already driving his shovel into the ground.

They dig for hours. Stiles’ arms are killing him, his hands are starting to crack, he can feel sweat running down his back, making his shirt stick to his skin. Scott is unstoppable, though. He moves faster than should be humanly possible – but he still complains like good old Scott.

Stiles is ready to call for a break before he passes out when he hits something. Suddenly his sore muscles are the last thing on his mind. Together, they loosen to knots around the piece of cloth they’ve discovered, so excited to have found something that Stiles actually forgets what’s going to be inside.

He’s glad, a second later, when it’s not only him jumping out of the hole with a scream.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he pants, looking down at the giant wolf head staring blankly up at them. “You guys don’t even turn into full wolves.”

He lifts his arm to rub sweat off his forehead when he sees the flower on the ground, a few feet away. It takes a second to click, but then he’s scrambling up to get it.

Wolfsbane.

Wolfsbane that’s attached to a rope circling the grave they just dug up. Stiles tugs it out of the earth slowly, wondering what’s going to happen once he’s done. He read different things about the plant, there are different types that serve different purposes.

“Stiles,” Scott breathes from the ground once Stiles’ done. Stiles inches closer to the grave, peeks down and sees Laura Hale where the wolf had been.

His knees buckle from under him, fingers scrabbling at the edge of the hole. He leans in as far as he can go without falling because he has to have seen wrong.

“Oh, God,” he says, though he barely hears himself, his voice is raw. “Oh, no. Oh, crap.”

“We have to call the cops.”

“No! No, this isn’t— He didn’t, it wasn’t him, oh, God, fuck, shit,” Stiles is starting to hyperventilate, vision going blurry at the edges. “It wasn’t him, don’t you see?”

“What’re you talking about, Stiles? All I see is half a girl buried next to his house!”

“No,” Stiles mumbles again. He sits down, puts his head between his knees and takes a breath. “This isn’t some girl. It’s L- Laura Hale. It’s his sister.”

“So that makes him even crazier,” Scott is starting to shout and Stiles’ head is pounding.

“No,” Stiles whines. “He wouldn’t. It wasn’t him, Scott.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know him, okay? I know him enough to know he wouldn’t cut his freaking sister in half!”

“What do you mean you know him?”

“Oh, God, we have to go. We have to…what the hell are we even doing?” Stiles scrambles up to his feet and starts kicking dirt back into the hole. He feels sick, he can’t bring himself to look down again, so he closes his eyes and nearly falls right down into it.

Scott catches him and helps him steady himself. “Stiles, what’re you doing? We have to call the cops.”

“No,” Stiles says again, grabbing at Scott’s forearms. “Scott, we’ll figure this out but promise me you won’t call the cops.”

“Stiles--” Scott begins and Stiles squeezes his arms tighter.

“Promise me,” he repeats, staring into Scott eyes, hoping he can transmit just how urgent it is that Scott listens to him. “I’ll explain, but no cops for now. Okay?”

“Fine,” Scott finally agrees, but he does not look happy.

Together, they cover up the hole. They’re quiet the entire time – Stiles can practically hear every question going through Scott’s head like he’s screaming them at him. Stiles can’t stop seeing Laura’s face behind his eyelids every time he blinks. Her dark eyes glassy and empty and dead. Dead, dead, dead. And Derek buried her, Derek knows about it and he’s spending his days in the house where his family died and hunters are after him and he doesn’t want to talk to Stiles.

Maybe he’s looking for Laura’s killer. It was definitely another wolf, probably the same wolf that bit Scott.

“I’m gonna walk home,” Scott says after they’re done. “Clear my head or something.”

“Sure, man.” Stiles is busy stuffing the wolfsbane in his bag and he waves at Scott’s retreating back without paying much attention. He throws the bag into his jeep and sits behind the wheel. Should he wait for Derek to come back and try to talk to him?

In the end he decides to leave, mostly because he doesn’t want to find out what Derek’s reaction will be when Stiles tells him he dug up his sister. Shit, he still can’t process that.

He’s home just in time to see his dad coming out of the house.

“You know there’s a curfew, young man,” his father tells him. He sounds distracted and when Stiles tries to catch his eye, he pretends to be checking his holster.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing. I have to go to work, son.”

“Dad,” Stiles insists and stops him with a hand on his chest. “What is it?”

His dad looks at him. “Were you at the Hale house tonight?”

“Um, no, no. Why?” And then Stiles knows and he’s going to _kill_ Scott.

“We got a call. I have to check something out, you stay inside.”

Stiles lets his dad go and gives him a five minute window (the longest five minutes of his life) before he’s rushing to his jeep and speeding back to the woods. He calls Scott on the way but of course he doesn’t pick up. Stiles throws his phone on the passenger’s seat with a curse. He steps on the gas, figuring most of Beacon Hills’ law enforcement should be at the house and no one’s going to pull him over.

He leaves the jeep a few yards away from the house and walks the rest of the way. The place is packed with officers, some local, some not. The side of the house is closed with yellow tape and people are starting to dig up the grave. Stiles’ dad is talking on his radio, staring at the front of the house. Derek is nowhere to be seen.

Stiles crouches at the edge of the woods until the sun is up, biting his nails, heart thumping the entire time. There’s some noise when the diggers finally find Laura, raised voices and mumbles, and Stiles’ stomach drops. He was sort of hoping the body had been a figment of his imagination, some weird shared hallucination with Scott – it doesn’t sound so odd next to everything else happening lately.

He sees his father peeking into the hole and nodding, and then he says something into his radio and an officer is taking Derek out of his house. Stiles starts to stand up and then drops back to the ground. He swears Derek sees him, their eyes meet for a fraction of a second before Derek looks away. Stiles watches them put him in his dad’s cruiser and leave him there.

As soon as everyone is back at the side of the house, Stiles rushes to the cruiser and slips into the front seat.

Derek is in front of him, the steel partition between them. He looks pale and furious. Stiles prepares to be yelled at, and when that doesn’t happen, just starts talking himself.

“I’m so freaking sorry you have no idea. I didn’t mean for this to happen, I know it wasn’t you. I saw— I saw and I know it wasn’t you. My dad will figure it out, too. When he realizes. He’ll help you, I promise. I just…why can’t you tell me what’s happening?”

Derek only glares.

“I know you’re trying to keep me away, but Scott’s my friend and okay, he’s a bit of a- He’s not all there lately, I know. But he’s a good guy and, oh, God, Derek I’m so sorry.”

Stiles rubs at his eyes and realizes that he still hasn’t slept. He sat in the woods all night, while Derek was kept inside, surrounded by the remnants of his family, as a bunch of people dug up his sister’s body from his backyard. He could probably smell Stiles, as well. The whole time.

“Derek-”

“Why are you so worried about me when it’s your friend that’s the problem?” Derek says, leaning forward so that Stiles can feel his breath hitting his face. “When he kills someone on the field, what are you going to do? Just keep cheering him on? I can’t stop him from playing but you can. And trust me, you want to.”

Stiles is speechless. That’s the most Derek’s talked to him in years, and all he heard is that he doesn’t give a damn that they’re putting him in jail, but someone should stop Scott from going crazy and killing somebody. He wants to tell Derek something, anything, to make that look on his face to go away. But before he can open his mouth, a hand is closing around his arm and he’s being yanked out of the car by his father.

“I thought I told you to stay inside the house,” he scolds him, eyes darting over Stiles’ shoulder to where Derek is sitting the police car. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Stiles sighs. “Dad, you know he didn’t do it.”

“I don’t know anything, son.”

Stiles wants to tell his father who’s in the hole, but he can’t know Stiles was there before now. So he goes back to his jeep with one last glance Derek’s way. All he sees is the back of his head.

He finds Scott by his car.

“Not fucking cool, dude,” he tells him. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“He threatened to kill me, Stiles,” Scott says. “And there was a dead body buried next to his house.”

“That was his sister,” Stiles repeats, because apparently Scott is not listening to him properly. “She was like, the only family he had left. He didn’t kill her.”

Scott looks sceptical, and Stiles loses all his remaining energy. Arguing with him is not going to get Derek out of jail.

“You can drive me home,” he decides and gets into the passenger’s seat and closes his eyes.

He wakes halfway to his house with Scott going completely insane next to him.

“What’s wrong?!” He asks, flattening himself against the door.

“I don’t know,” Scott pants and grunts in a way that looks painful, doubling over.

Stiles realizes what’s happening a second later, and reaches into the backseat for his bag pack. He tugs at the zipper and opens it, the wolfsbane spilling out.

“ _You kept it_?” Scott shouts and his eyes flash, fangs growing as Stiles watches.

“Shit,” he mutters and runs out of the car. He goes beyond the tree line and throws the bag as far as he can. When he looks back, Scott is gone. “You gotta be kidding me.”

Stiles goes searching for his bag before returning to the car. He needs the wolfsbane for research.

It takes most of the morning for Scott to return his calls and then Stiles is free to go home and sleep until it’s time for the game. It’s still not enough rest, but he gets dressed and goes to school when the time comes. Scott is in the locker room, acting as if nothing’s happened.

“Are you still gonna play? After this morning?” Stiles asks him.

“Coach didn’t give me a choice,” Scott replies, sending a glance Jackson’s way.

Stiles tries to talk him out of it and belatedly realizes he’s spilling all his worries into Scott without a filter. He shuts up before he can start on Derek and follows Scott to the field. His dad is in the stands, as well as Scott’s mom, Lydia, and Allison with her father. Her father the hunter, who will probably pick up on anything strange going on.

Stiles swallows his nerves, chewing on his gloves because his nail beds are already bloody and tender. The game starts off okay, but it’s not long before Stiles notices no one is passing the ball to Scott. Is something so out of elementary school that Stiles is sure Jackson is behind it. The people in the stands don’t seem to care as long as Beacon Hills is scoring points, Allison is cheering too, even though it’s obvious what’s happening. Stiles hopes Scott is not watching, but of course he is. He’d probably go blind before missing a chance to stare at Allison.

When Scott starts acting odd, Stiles is pretty sure everyone notices. The way he’s hunched over, how his movements turn suddenly animalistic. Stiles is waiting for him to jump at someone’s throat, but instead Scott starts playing, really playing, scoring point after point.

Everyone runs to the field when the game is over, Scott having made the winning shot. Stiles slumps with relief on the bench, he can see Scott running away to the locker room, apparently at breaking point. Then he hears his dad talking behind him.

“Dad? What is it?” He asks when he sees how serious his father looks. He can’t help but think of Derek, and what if they found something more incriminating him.

But, after some needling, his dad tells him that both halves of the body belong to the same person, Laura Hale (and Stiles tries his best to look surprised but probably just looks upset and resigned, because that’s how he feels at the moment) and that they found animal DNA on the second half, too. So Derek was released that afternoon.

“He’s still a person of interest,” his dad tells him with a look. “I don’t want you snooping, especially around him. Or that house.”

“But Dad,” Stiles begins to protest, but his father holds up a hand and stops him.

“It’s been three years. He’s not the same person.”

“He’s still not a murderer,” Stiles says, because someone has to believe in Derek, even if he still refuses to talk to that someone.

After his dad gets back to work, Stiles goes to find Scott to tell him the news. He finds him making out with Allison in the showers, which is off-putting, especially because he just can’t put Allison and the stinky locker room in the same thought. He only stays to make sure Scott doesn’t go berserk like he did with Stiles. He doesn’t and, after Allison leaves – God, she must really think Stiles is a freak, now – tells him how he managed to pull the wolf back, control it.

He looks so happy and earnest that Stiles can’t bring himself to tell him about Derek, even if he’s still mad at him. But Scott must see something in his face and insists. It’s almost funny how drastically his face falls. Almost.

It’s hard to think of _anything_ funny at the moment.

The next couple of weeks are surprisingly uneventful. Scott and Allison shock the entire world by staying together, Lydia Martin continues to be gorgeous and unattainable and dating Jackson the prick Whittemore, and Stiles tries to do what his dad asked him to and stay away from everything Hale related.

Except for the times he drives around the Hale property in hopes of accidentally running into Derek, with no success so far. He thinks Derek probably knows when he’s around and avoids him, but that’s not going to stop Stiles from trying.

Then Scott tells Stiles about the dream he had of attacking Allison. Stiles is pretty sure it was an anxiety dream, probably because Scott and Allison are about to go on their first real date after the disaster that was Lydia’s party and Scott is nervous as hell.

“Maybe,” Scott says, “I can ask Derek for help.”

Stiles has to check he heard right, because he honestly can’t believe it for a second. He slaps Scott upside the head. “Are you insane? You got him thrown in jail.”

Not even Stiles is over that, how does Scott think Derek feels?

“Well, who else? I need better control. He was fine during the full moon,” Scott insists.

Stiles has complicated feelings about the whole thing. But the more prominent (and ridiculous) one is that he hasn’t even had a full conversation with Derek yet. Scott has Allison and a whole new clique in which Stiles does not belong. He goes on dates (well, a date) and disappears entire afternoons to fool around, while Stiles does pathetic attempts to run into someone who doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.

He’s aware he’s being petty – he doesn’t really care.

Then they step outside and for about the most scary fifteen minutes of their lives, they think Allison is actually dead. She’s fine, but somebody did get mauled in a school bus, though, and there’s a chance it was Scott who did the mauling.

It isn’t until they see the state of the guy that was attacked that Scott repeats his idea about asking Derek for help and Stiles can’t bring himself to argue. He’s determined to be he one who helps Scott, though. He will find a way for him to go on his date and not kill his girlfriend in the process.

He’s telling this to Scott during lunch when the most amazing and disturbing thing happens: Lydia walks over to their table and sits down.

Stiles is in shock.

Then a bunch of other beautiful people are following her lead, and Stiles finds himself sandwiched between a very attractive girl who doesn’t seem too impressed with him, and Danny, a very attractive guy who looks pained at the sight of Stiles in so close proximity. Too many of Stiles’ crushes are sitting at this table and he’s way too sweaty all of a sudden.

He starts stalking the news feeds in his phone after he realizes he’s been staring at Lydia for too long (he’s never seen her eat anything up close, it’s mesmerizing) and Jackson is starting to look dangerous. Turns out the victim is a bus driver Scott used to know during the days they don’t talk about (when his father asked for shared custody and Scott had to go to his house twice a week and rode the bus to school and was constantly miserable) and nothing really makes sense, because why would Scott attack a bus driver he hadn’t seen in years?

No one else at the table seems to care about the poor guy, and Lydia and Allison start making plans to go bowling, of all things. Stiles is only listening to keep himself from thinking about anything else. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if the roles had been reversed. What if he had been the one meeting a girl willing to date him the day after being turned into a werewolf? And what if the girl had turned out to be the daughter of a hunter trying to kill him? Would he have broken it off early or would he be making plans to humiliate himself on a double date?

The world will never know.

-

After lunch, Scott tells him he’s going to ask Derek for help after school, before the date. Stiles skips his last class and drives to the Hale house, alone.

He leaves his jeep in the usual spot, hidden in the woods, invisible if someone drives up the road. He walks the rest of the way, rehearsing what he’s planning on saying to Derek. He’s not going to accuse or recriminate. He’s not going to mention Laura or the fire or anything, he’s going to focus on _now_.

Stiles walks up the creaking steps leading to the porch and stands there. If Derek is in the house, he knows that Stiles is out here. He still knocks, because is the polite thing to do (and maybe he doesn’t want to wait the entire afternoon out there for nothing). There’s no answer. He knocks again. And again a second later. And then he just keeps hitting the door with his knuckles, no discernible pattern to it, just making sure Derek knows he’s not going away. It’s starting to hurt by the time the door swings open and Stiles almost hits Derek’s chest.

“Hello, good sir,” he says, shaking his throbbing fingers in front of him. “Lovely afternoon for a stroll through the woods.”

Derek glares at him, quiet.

“I had some things to discuss with you,” Stiles plummets on. “Important, wolf-related things. Because you know I know you’re a werewolf, not that you bothered to tell me but I figured it out. Remember when you sat in my room and played videogames and talked? Those were good times, especially the talking. Or not so much the talking, but the signs you gave that you were listening. I miss that. Also, I thought you’d be taller.”

Derek’s eyebrows are doing something weird. Like they can’t decide if they want to furrow down in a frown or go up to Derek’s hairline.

“I mean, you grew, obviously.” Stiles gestures to Derek’s shoulders, that look massive up close and his chest, which looks more solid than the door he just spent ten minutes banging on. He wonders who would win in a fight, Derek or Danny (minus the wolf strength, of course). Danny is the biggest guy Stiles knows. Until now, at least.

He can tell he spent too much time staring when he looks back at Derek’s face and his eyebrows have decided to go up.

“Um,” he starts when Derek cuts him off.

“What do you want, Stiles?”

“Oh, look, you remember my name!”

“Stiles—”

“Oh, say it again.”

Derek doesn’t. Stiles sighs, rubbing at the back of his head.

“Listen, Scott is coming here after school. He wants to ask for your help. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t go crazy on him.”

“Why would I? I told him I’d help him.”

“Um, yeah, but that was before…and things change and I don’t know.” Stiles is pretty sure Derek knows who it was that called the cops on him. He has to know. Maybe he doesn’t care. Or maybe he cares more about helping out than about being accused of killing his sister.

Derek looks up, eyes scanning the trees behind Stiles. “Is Scott driving here?”

“No, he bikes to school.”

“Get inside.” Derek steps into the house and, after a small hesitation, Stiles follows.

“What—” He starts to ask, but Derek shuts him up with a look. Stiles rolls his eyes, but he’s nervous. There’s still something lurking out there. A minute later he hears a car stopping outside. He stands in the middle of the hall while Derek goes to a window and looks out.

It’s cold inside, and it smells old and damp. The walls and floors are charred, the stairs in front of him don’t seem to have much strength left. Being in here makes the hairs on Stiles’ arms stand on end. He pictures the house in pristine condition, clean and noisy with voices like he used to hear coming from his backyard and his stomach twists.

A dog barks outside, close, and Stiles snaps out of it and looks over at Derek. A moment later he hears a car’s engine start. Stiles peeks through another window and sees a police cruiser disappearing down the road. Derek is looking at him, the light from outside hitting the side of his face. His eyes look very bright.

“Why are you staying here?” He asks before he can think better of it. Derek looks away, jaw clenching. “I thought maybe you had a place in town, but you’re staying here, aren’t you?”

He takes a step towards Derek, but something in his stance makes Stiles stop. He looks cornered, and even though Stiles wants to believe Derek wouldn’t lash out at him, he’s not going to risk it.

“You said what you wanted to, now get out of here.” Derek’s voice is quiet, he doesn’t even look at Stiles.

“I didn’t say half of what I want to,” Stiles snaps back and then someone’s shouting Derek’s name outside. Scott can surely make a dramatic entrance when he puts his mind to it – even Derek looks momentarily exasperated. “Oh my God. Just, think of him as a puppy.”

And boy, does that earn him a glare.

“I mean, be patient and try not to rough him up too badly when he doesn’t listen.”

Derek gives him a look, eyebrows doing all the talking, really, and Stiles crosses his arms over his chest.

“I earned the right to impose on you the first time you broke into my house.”

Stiles should really stop bringing up those days. But he has so much to say that the little comments keep slipping past his lips without his permission, and is either that or exploding in Derek’s face.

Scott shouts again.

Stiles goes out of what remains of the back of the house when Derek finally answers Scott’s calls. It takes him a while to find his jeep, and nothing attacks him in the woods. He pretty much considers the afternoon a success.

Derek’s plan is not something Stiles couldn’t have thought of himself, but he’s just glad everyone has the right amount of body parts after the talk. So he drives Scott to sniff around the school bus that night before his date, and the results are confusing. Scott is sure Derek was the one who almost killed the bus driver, and that doesn’t make any sense. Derek sent him there in the first place.

One thing is for sure, though: Scott is not the one who attacked the bus driver. He was there when it happened, but did not participate in the blood bath. Stiles continues to consider the day a success.

He’s starting to suspect that the whole thing might have been some kind of pack ritual, and he vows to do some reading about it tonight. It’s way past curfew when he drops Scott off at his house, but he knows his father is at work, so Stiles makes a stop at a gas station to buy something to drink.

He lingers at the magazine stand near the windows, pretending he’s not looking at the ones with tiny scraps of black tape covering women’s nipples when he sees some movement outside. He steps around the stand and presses his face against the glass, his palms shading the light from the store as best as he can with a soda cup in his hand.

Derek is out there, surrounded by a group of mean looking men that just scream Hunters. Stiles has no doubt left when one of them breaks Derek’s window and all Derek does is stand there and take it.

At least there are no crossbows in sight.

When the hunters leave, Derek makes his way to the store. Stiles panics, nearly knocking the magazine stand over. He presses his back to the window, trying to hide his face behind the giant cardboard cup in his hand. The last think he needs is for Derek to think he’s stalking him or something. But Derek ignores him.

As much as Stiles would like to be invisible at the moment, Derek knows he’s there, he has to have seen his jeep outside, but he just pays for his gas and goes back to his car, not even nodding Stiles’ way. So, it’s like this again. And here Stiles thought they had made some progress.

He takes his time driving home, checking his phone every couple of minutes in case Scott has some sort of emergency. It isn’t until he’s sitting in front of his computer, attempting to read about wolf packs (again) when he realizes he’s too restless to stay still. His leg is jiggling in place, his knuckles are scrapped raw from biting them and he’s worried about pretty much every person he knows right now.

He considers reading about stress on teenagers, or anxiety attacks (though there’s little he doesn’t know about those) and in the end decides to go downstairs and check his dad’s radio frequency.

That’s how he finds out the bus driver died a few minutes ago.

His stomach drops. Scott had mentioned wanting to talk with the man when he was better, clear his conscience completely. And now they’re back where they started, except that Scott is convinced Derek is behind the attack, no matter how ridiculous the idea is.

Stiles drives to Scott’s house, hoping he’s back from the date. He wants him to hear about the bus driver from him instead of the news or his mother. All he gets for his troubles are almost being wacked in the head with a baseball bat and Scott losing his shit and jumping out his window in search of Derek.

Stiles is getting tired of chasing after emotional werewolves.

He speeds back to the Hale house, hoping he’s not too late. He breaks to a stop right before hitting the porch and stumbles out, tripping up the steps and grabbing the doorknob with unsteady hands, his heart thumping.

The door is halfway open before he hears Derek’s voice echoing all through the house. Talking about Laura, about how he came to Beacon Hills looking for her and found her in pieces. How she was being used as bait to catch him. Stiles is frozen in place, his hands stiff like claws on the door handle. He has the presence of mind to wonder at Derek’s steady voice, about how long it must have taken him to master sounding so calm while talking about it.

Then Scott is talking, and Stiles focuses back into the room and sees him up the stairs, shoulders hunched and ready to pounce. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “I think you killed them both. I’m gonna tell everyone, starting with the sheriff.”

The lump in Stiles throat dissolves and he shouts, “Scott!” Because Scott doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, and then again, only a little more strangled, when Derek comes out of the shadows and sends Scott flying down the stairs, before leaping down himself. They both land at Stiles feet, and before Stiles can blink, Scott has shifted.

He launches himself at Derek, and they wrestle, snarling as Stiles presses himself against the door and catches his breath.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Derek hisses in Scott’s face when he has him pinned to the floor. “You have to learn to control it or you’ll end up killing someone you care about.”

“I’d never--” Scott starts to protest, but Derek digs his claws into his shoulders and he ends the sentence with a loud groan.

“Get over yourself,” Derek growls. “If you had any control at all you’d shift back right now.”

Scott is panting, his face remains twisted, fangs out, ears long and pointed. Derek huffs and Stiles sees him going a little slack before Scott is planting his feet under him and sending him sprawling to the floor. Derek jumps up and throws himself at Scott again, but Scott uses his momentum to grab him and send him through a wall. 

Scott just left a Derek-shaped hole in a wall and Stiles might never get over it.

He follows them to the next room when his legs stop feeling like cooked noodles, and by then Derek has shifted, too. He looks…worse than Stiles remembered. Maybe because he’s so angry - Stiles is surprised he’s not foaming at the mouth. His eyes are casting their own light, making his fangs look even sharper. His claws are like ten deadly knives, slashing away at Scott, who is not giving up.

Stiles starts making his way to them, looking for a chance to get in between them and not lose any body parts in the process.

The moment presents itself when Derek leaves a deep scratch on Scott’s stomach. Scott is left stumbling, his arms around himself, blood staining his ripped shirt. Stiles steps in front of Derek, and Derek stops looming instantly. His claws retract.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stiles asks both of them, but his eyes are on Derek’s blue ones. “How is this helping? Am I the only one left who is able to actually use their brain and see that we are on the same freaking side?”

“I’m not on his side,” Scott spits behind him. “He’s a murderer.”

Derek’s eyes flash, upper lip curling, but his face is smoothing down, his wolf features slowly disappearing. Stiles doesn’t turn to face Scott, but he can tell from his voice that he’s still wolfed out. He wants to turn around, but for the entirely wrong reason. He’d feel safer with his back to Derek, and he hates it.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Derek says, his voice low. “Neither of us did.”

Scott pants and grits out, “You did this to me. It’s all your fault.” He’s getting worked up again. Stiles gives Derek a look and turns, holding a hand out. His fingers barely graze Scott’s arm when he makes a horrible sound, like he’s more animal than boy, and shoves Stiles away, claws out.

Stiles ends up on his back near the hole on the wall, the wind knocked out of him. He lands awkwardly, coughing dust and instantly checks to see if Scott scratched him because that would be just _awesome_.

He’s patting his chest, breathing hard, when he realizes how quiet everything is. He looks up to see two pair of glowing eyes staring at him. Then there’s this sound, like the one Scott made before but lower and angrier and then Derek has Scott pinned to the floor again. It happens so fast Stiles isn’t sure he didn’t black out for a moment, because one second they’re both standing, and the next Derek is growling right in Scott’s face, his hands twisted in Scott’s collar.

“I’m not the one that bit you,” he says, his entire body vibrating. Scott is back to normal, dark eyes wide and mouth open in shock.

“There’s another one,” he breathes and Stiles could knock his friend’s head against the floor for being so thick, but at least it’s finally sinking in.

“It’s called an alpha,” Derek says, not easing off of Scott an inch. He looks at Stiles, face back to normal as well. “It’s the most dangerous of our kind.”

Scott and him are betas, and since the alpha bit Scott, he’s part of his pack. So Stiles was right about the bus possibly being a pack ritual thing. The alpha wants Scott to join him.

Derek’s explanation leaves them both speechless, and Derek finally lets Scott go and stands a few feet away, hands opening and closing.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” Stiles asks when he find his voice.

Derek doesn’t look at him, but his hands close into tight fists. “You have nothing to do with this.”

Stiles flinches back, anger sparking back to life.

“I’m trying to help!”

“You’re only a human,” Derek says. He rubs a fist on his chest, eyes still averted. “You’re useless.”

Stiles is quiet, mouth falling shut with a click of his teeth. He gets up slowly, already sore. His back is bruised and he banged up his elbow pretty hard when Scott pushed him. He ignores everything and dusts himself off. He doesn’t trust his voice to speak. When he looks up again, Derek’s eyes are on him, stuck to the four little scratch marks on his t-shirt.

After a moment, Derek turns his back on him.

“I don’t want to see you around again.”

It stings more than Stiles wants to admit. Scott is shuffling his way, looking ashamed and troubled. Stiles sighs, thumbing one of the holes in his shirt.

“Fuck you, Derek,” he mumbles and walks Scott to his jeep, Derek only a grumbling shadow behind them.

Scott and Stiles don’t talk again until the next day, and it’s not long after that before Derek needs their help.

-

Stiles wakes up with a start.

It’s been a week since he saw Derek last, leaving him alone in the Hale house. A week of nightmares that ranged from fights with a fully shifted Scott to running for his life through the woods, giant flames chasing after him, a burly, black something running alongside him. Stiles always wakes up before he finds out if the blue-eyed creature is running with him or after him.

He lies there a moment, letting his vision adjust to the dim light of his room. He can hear his father moving around downstairs, getting ready for work. There’s a headache lurking behind his eyes, Stiles is sure it’ll get out of control if he doesn’t deal with it as soon as possible.

He goes down for breakfast a few minutes later – dressed, brushed and medicated – only to find his dad sitting at the kitchen table, a plate of bacon in front of him.

“Now, before you say anything,” he starts, mouth already full, “I deserve this. It’s the third Tuesday of the month, I’m allowed.”

“We agreed on the third Friday,” Stiles corrects, fishing into the fridge for some milk and a couple of apples. He tosses one to his dad, who drops his fork to catch it. “And we agreed on a greasy dinner, not a greasy breakfast.”

“Yeah, but since I’m having dinner at the station, I figured I could switch.”

“No, no, no. See, you’re not authorized to make that kind of decision on your own. We’re a team here.”

His dad stares at him as Stiles sits down, the apple still in his hand. It’s not uncommon – sometimes his dad gets this faraway look when Stiles says something or other, and then there’s a lot of throat-clearing and averting eyes and after a moment, everything is back to normal. Today is no exception.

Stiles stopped wondering about what things remind his dad of his mom a long time ago, when he realized that he was watching what he said so much that he barely talked at all.

“At least eat the apple.”

His dad does, but not before finishing the last of the bacon.

Anyway, since the day starts on a slightly depressing note, Stiles is not surprised when it goes downhill. Fast.

“Dude, you need to study more,” he says to the back of Scott’s head. It’s the last class of the day and Scott does not appreciate Stiles’ shot at lightening the mood. He’s failing chemistry, and even though he was never the best student, he had always held a respectable B average. It’s not surprising, Scott has his mind occupied and there’s only so much he can process at once.

Stiles always does better in school when he’s going through some kind of crisis.

Scott is not impressed with Stiles trying to distract him with questions and it’s not long before he snaps.

“Just one more question.” Stiles says, because he has to. Scott glares at him, just like Stiles was expecting. “Alright, no more questions. No more talking about the alpha or Derek. Especially Derek. Who’s still an asshole.”

Scott slouches down on his desk, facing away from Stiles in a pout.

“Hey.” Stiles pokes him. “I can help you study.”

“I’m studying with Allison today,” Scott mutters. Stiles raises his eyebrows, expecting some kind of follow up because this is a major event in the Scott and Allison’s Little Fairytale of Fear and Secrets. When Scott fails to explain, Stiles pokes him again.

“Dude, I hope you don’t think you’re actually studying,” he says. “Just say you don’t, please, for the sake of your best friend in the entire world who couldn’t get someone to kiss him even if he needed mouth to mouth.”

After a pause, Scott smiles over his shoulder. “I’d give you mouth to mouth.”

“Sure you would, buddy. And you would spend the rest of your life trying to get over me and these lips.”

Stiles’ plans for the evening involve going grocery shopping for some greens and raiding his kitchen in search of his dad’s secret stash of unhealthy breakfast foods. It’s a little sad that, in a town crawling with hunters and werewolves and who knows what else, this is as exciting as his afternoon is going to get.

He’s thinking – as he gets into his car, pulling out of his parking space with practiced ease – about how Scott is going to spend the day alone with his girlfriend in her house and Stiles is going to grumble at store clerks about the price of vegetables or about how he wasn’t taking advantage of the free samples stand when Derek stumbles in front of his jeep.

Stiles steps on the brake with a yelp, making his car lurch to a stop an inch away from Derek’s upraised hand. He looks like shit and Stiles wastes no time unbuckling his seatbelt and scrambling to him. He catches Derek just as his knees give out, and Stiles barely manages to keep him from hitting his head on the pavement.

“Holy shit, Derek,” Stiles mutters as he’s brought to the floor by Derek’s dead weight.

People are honking their horns somewhere behind them, but Stiles is hardly aware. He checks for wounds, and finds Derek’s arm is soaked with blood, dripping all over Stiles’ clothes.

“What’s he doing here?” Scott hisses, suddenly next to them, his hands landing on Stiles’ shoulders hard enough to make Stiles bite his tongue. “What’s wrong?”

Stiles opens his mouth to say he has no freaking idea, when Derek speaks. “I’ve been shot.”

“What’re you doing here?” Scott asks as Stiles mumbles, “He’s not looking good, dude.”

Stiles is holding Derek up as best as he can, but the guy is heavy and his back is slowly inching to the ground, Stiles’ hands getting crushed under his leather-clad back.

“Why aren’t you healing?” Scott is looking around and Stiles realizes people are staring. Of course, they’re making a scene in the middle of the parking lot. They need to move. But then Derek speaks again, and the world fades away.

“I can’t,” he wheezes. “It was a different kind of bullet.”

“What, like a silver bullet?” Stiles perks up, because he _read_ about those. He knows how to deal with a silver wound.

“ _No_ ,” Derek growls, eyes snapping open and meeting his. Stiles deflates.

“Wait, wait,” Scott says, urgent. “That’s what she meant when she said you had forty-eight hours.”

“Who?” Derek and Stiles snap at the same time. Derek looks shaken, Stiles wants to know why Scott didn’t think it was important for Stiles to know about Derek getting shot at.

“The woman who shot you.”

Stiles wants to ask, wants to hear everything Scott knows about this, but Derek is bleeding and his eyes keep threatening to change, flashing bright blue as Derek groans in pain.

“Stop that!” Scott tells him and helps Stiles put Derek in his jeep. Stiles jumps into the driver’s seat at once, squirming in place, his hand on the ignition, ready to tear out of there as soon as someone tells him where to go.

Derek tells Scott that the woman who shot him is an Argent, and that Scott has to find out about the bullet. He knows Scott is going to Allison’s, for some reason Stiles can’t think about right now. Scott…doesn’t look particularly worried. Not now that Derek isn’t in plain sight of the rest of the school. He says he’ll try to find something.

As soon as Scott steps away, Stiles starts the car and steps on the gas. Derek slumps against the door and closes his eyes. He’s pale and clammy, dark circles under his eyes. There’s an awful, rotten smell coming from him that Stiles decides not to mention. He focuses on the road.

After what he considers the right amount of time, he texts Scott.

“Scott needs more time,” he tells Derek when his phone chirps. He doesn’t get an answer. Derek is breathing hard, clutching at his arm, eyes shut tight. Stiles keeps glancing at him, fingers tapping the steering wheel. “Are you okay?”

Derek takes a deep breath and says nothing.

“Of course you’re not okay, you look like a corpse already,” he mutters to himself. “Goddammit, Scott.”

Stiles keeps driving.

“Where’re almost there,” he says a while later, not expecting Derek to acknowledge him. He almost veers out of the road in shock when Derek speaks up.

“Almost where?”

“Your house?” Stiles tells him, instantly aware that something’s wrong if Derek deemed his announcement worth a comment.

“No, not when I’m weak and can’t p- protect myself.” And it’s true, and Stiles should have thought about it before driving all through town – there are hunters shooting magical bullets, of course they’re keeping an eye on the house. But Stiles doesn’t appreciate Derek’s tone, not when he’s bleeding on his seats after he was very clear about how he didn’t need Stiles’ help.

Before he knows it, he’s pulling over the deserted road and turning to Derek, who honestly looks worse by the second.

“What happens if Scott doesn’t find the bullet?” He asks. “Because let’s face it, we didn’t exactly send Sherlock Holmes to look for it.”

Derek glances at him, probably doing the closest he can to a glare. He looks horribly sick.

“Are you dying?” Stiles’ voice cracks, but he purses his lips and waits for an answer.

Derek blinks, long and slow and worrying. “Not yet.”

“Yet? _Yet_?! When then? How long do we have? Is it…is it really forty-eight hours?”

There’s something twisting in his chest that hasn’t let up since Derek nearly passed out in the school’s parking lot. It’s almost night time now, and Stiles is leaving little half-moons carved into his palms as he resists the need to reach out.

“I have a last resort,” Derek finally grits out, tugging at his sleeve and, God, his arms looks beyond horrible. There’re dark veins spreading from the wound, a really bad infection carrying poison to Derek’s heart. Aside from chopping off his arm, Stiles can’t see what last resort Derek can be thinking of.

Stiles calls Scott for the fortieth time and finally gets a hold of him, after getting his voicemail for hours. He tells Stiles to take Derek to the animal clinic and Stiles is so relieved to finally have a plan and a destination – a purpose besides watching Derek slowly die next to him – that he doesn’t even laugh at the idea. Taking the wolf to the vet – it’s going to be funny as soon as Derek is fully functional again.

He passes the phone to Derek and starts the car again. It doesn’t escape him how Derek has to keep bargaining for his life with Scott, but he’s too busy breaking a few traffic laws to ponder on it.

Derek can barely stand on his own when they get to the clinic. Stiles finds the key where Scott told him and is opening the door when he gets a text. The bullet is laced with a form of wolfsbane. At this point is not a surprise, but Derek needs the bullet or he’s going to die without it.

Stiles nearly drops his phone in his haste to tell Scott.

As soon as the door is open, Stiles throws caution out the fucking window and reaches for Derek, puts his good arm around his shoulders and helps him inside. Derek clings to him. His wound stinks, he’s drenched in a cold sweat that’s making his cheek stick to Stiles’ neck as they stumble into one of the surgical rooms.

It’s hard to watch Derek being anything but his own kind of hulking, graceful self.

Stiles leaves Derek perched against the wall and goes to find the light switches. When he turns around, he’s faced with Derek’s muscled, pale, suddenly bare back. Stiles swallows, eyes lingering at the tattoo on Derek’s skin as Derek opens cabinet after cabinet in search of…something.

“So, leather jackets and tattoos,” Stiles hears himself say, even though he can feel his eyes growing and growing as he stares at Derek’s messed up arm. He wonders if, at this point, it will go back to normal or forever be scarred, marred with black lines underneath his skin. “Can’t say that I disapprove, but as far as rebellious statements go it’s a…little…obvious…” Stiles trails off when Derek turns around and drops a freaking saw on the metal slab in front of him.

Stiles is seriously worried he might pass out or throw up or both.

“What’s that for?” He asks, his voice tiny and shaky.

“You’re going to cut off my arm,” Derek says, perching himself on the table and tying a rubber band above the wound with a groan.

“No, I’m not,” Stiles replies. “What—”

“I need to stop this thing from going into my heart.” Derek takes a breath and bends over the table. “It’s the only way.”

Stiles inches his fingers towards the saw, picks it up and presses the trigger. The saw screeches, and Stiles drops it back with a loud bang.

“Aw, no, no. Oh, man, I’m not doing it, fuck.”

Derek pants, glaring from under his eyebrows. “I don’t care…about before. I don’t care about the past. You’re gonna cut off my arm or I’m gonna cut off your head.”

The thing twisting in Stiles chest snaps, sharp, and Stiles is left gulping on breaths, trying to talk. Then Derek reaches out and grabs his collar, pulling him in. He opens his mouth to say something, his face so white it shouldn’t be possible, and hurls up a bucket load of black goo onto the tiled floor.

“Derek!” Stiles rasps. “Holy-- what the hell is _that_?”

“My body…is trying to heal itself,” Derek pulls Stiles down, closer to the table as his strength gives. “You have to do it now.”

Stiles grabs the saw, hands shaking, and presses it below the rubber band, the little spikes digging into Derek arms. He gulps down a sob.

“I honestly don’t think I can,” he whispers. His free hand is grabbing onto Derek’s shoulder, fingers digging into heated flesh.

Derek meets his eyes, not completely focused but still there. “Just do it.”

And Stiles is about to. He’s gathering up his nerve. He’s preparing for the sight, and the noise and the smell and the future nightmares, probably gorier and more vivid than his usual ones. He’s getting ready, finger on the trigger, blade pressing against Derek, starting to see white around the edges, bile climbing up his throat--

When Scott shows up.

Stiles nearly passes out from pure relief, but Derek beats him to it, falling to the floor with a loud thump. Stiles practically falls right on top of him trying to wake him. He straddles his hips and grabs Derek’s face, damp with sweat and very still.

“I think he’s dying,” he tells the room at large. He can’t find a pulse, most likely because his hands are trembling so badly. “I, I think he’s dead.”

His eyes are burning, throat tight, vision going blurry because fuck Derek Hale, coming back only to die on him, from a bullet to the _arm_ of all things.

Scott reappears a second later, Stiles is not sure where he went to, but he has the bullet. Stiles panics, looking down at the only person who knows what to do with the stupid thing. He makes a fist and punches Derek in the face as hard as he can. Derek reacts instantly, and Stiles is tempted to let himself drop forward and go to sleep right on top of him.

He feels Derek’s hand on his knee, barely squeezing, and Stiles realizes he’s still straddling him, keeping him on the floor, and hurries to get up. He ignores the way Derek’s fingers linger on his leg as he goes.

Stiles and Scott watch Derek do his magic, unsteady on his feet but quick and determined. The black blood recedes and the bullet wound closes and vanishes as Derek screams and writhes on the floor, muscles spasming.

Stiles may have broken a finger when he punched Derek and only notices when he fist-bumps the air, almost hysterical with relief and the end of the adrenaline rush. Derek doesn’t share Stiles’ mostly fake cheer, and is quickly back to his normal stony self.

“This is what they do, that family,” he tells Scott, Stiles once again invisible. He’s still holding onto the table, he should be sleeping somewhere safe, recovering, but instead he’s telling Scott how he’s going to show him how bad his girlfriend’s family really is.

Scott looks at Stiles, including him or waiting for him to comment. Either way, Stiles waves him off.

“I’m done with today,” he says, running his hands down his face and already heading for the door. He’s kind of surprised no one has to carry him. “You can fill me in tomorrow.”

Stiles ignores their looks – worried and sullen – and goes back to his foul smelling car and home. Halfway there he has to pull over and rest his forehead on the wheel. He can still feel the saw’s trigger against his finger. One more second and Stiles would have done it. He shudders at the thought of that tiny saw trying to cut through human bone, at the idea of Derek left one armed (because of him), if not dead of blood loss (because of _him_ ).

At the knowledge that he’s still out there, trying to convince Scott that he needs to be careful. As if the day they’d had wasn’t enough.

It’s a while before he can get back on the road.

His house is dark and empty when he finally gets there. He locks the doors and then goes up to his bedroom. The window is shut and the little latch is set. He knows the thing is useless, but he’s positive that he’d be able to hear anyone trying to get in. He lies down but can’t fall asleep until he swallows his pride and switches on the hallway lights.

Even then, sleep takes a long time coming.

-

Being constantly afraid gets old fast.

Stiles is not exactly a prime example of the stereotypical male ideal – Derek probably falls closer to that category, and considering he’s a _werewolf_ , Stiles is momentarily worried about the world before he decides that he has enough problems already. Anyway, he’s not what, say, Lydia would call a manly man, but he’s not a coward. He’s actually pretty sure his level of calm over the whole mess has to be a bit worrying on a psychological level, but then again, he has enough problems already.

The thing is he has yet to have a serious meltdown. Maybe when everything relaxes, when he’s not _thinking_ about it – they do have the tendency to sneak up on him.

But the fear is still there. Fear of the hunters finding out about Scott, of the hunters hurting Derek (again), of his dad getting caught up in all of it. There aren’t a lot of people in Stiles’ life that he actually cares and worries about, and three quarters of them are in actual danger most of the time. Stiles is stressed out of his mind.

But only when he lets himself really think about the danger in all of it, which is less and less often as more shit continues to happen.

A couple of days after Derek’s close call, there’s another death in Beacon Hills.

Stiles is with his father, having take out in the cruiser because all food that’s not organic has mysteriously disappeared from the house, when the radio crackles to life.

His dad only takes him along because they’re far from the house and he’s not going to make Stiles walk when someone was just murdered in town. Stiles promises to stay in the car.

Of course, when they get there and Lydia and Jackson are sitting in the back of an ambulance Stiles can’t stay still. For a moment, that same fear that has taken constant residence in his chest spikes up, if either of them, if Lydia got bitten or even _scratched_ —

But they seem okay, as Jackson proves by being his usual asshole self, to Stiles’ father of all people. It’s a relief they bring out the stretcher when they do, Stiles promised to stay put, but there’s only so much he can take. The dead body is a nice (man, and he thinks Scott’s priorities are messed up) distraction, and it gets Jackson out of his dad’s face soon enough.

Hours later, once they’re back home, Stiles calls Scott to fill him in, but Scott is not surprised. Instead, he has his own set of bad news.

“Derek thinks the alpha is trying to get me to _kill_ someone,” he says and Stiles chokes on his words. “To make me part of his pack or whatever.”

“I thought you already were part of his pack.”

“It’s like, like a test. If I do it, then it’s official.”

“Well, good thing you’re not a killer, then.” Stiles’ voice is not as steady as he’d want it to be, but Scott is so nerved up he probably doesn’t even notice.

“Derek says the alpha can make me do things,” he goes on. Stiles nods.

“Like with the bus.”

“Yeah…” Scott trails off, making Stiles sit up and narrow his eyes.

“What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Scott sighs. “He says I’m the only who can figure out who the alpha is, because I have a link with it, since he bit me and everything.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Scott grunts. “I don’t even think Derek knows.”

“I’ll try to find something,” Stiles promises.

He spends most of the night reading, but finds nothing helpful.

Lydia is not at school the next day and Jackson is acting weird. Stiles tries to ask Danny about it, but Danny just doesn’t seem to like him, no matter how charming Stiles tries to be. Also, things continue to be unclear on the attractive to gay guys or not front.

Scott is nowhere to be found either, and after Stiles spends the day trying to get a hold of him, he finally answers his phone – though it doesn’t make a difference, since he all but hangs up on him, not even pretending to consider doing something to help.

In times like this, Stiles is not sure how he ended up the one most likely to develop a stress ulcer. He’s not the werewolf, he’s not about to kill anyone and no one is actively trying to kill him. He’s just apparently the only one with some kind of common sense.

He makes the decision to visit Lydia and kill two birds with one stone. He’s going to check on her, and check on what she saw the night before.

Lydia is drugged out of her mind when Stiles gets there, though, and wearing a really distracting outfit. Stiles has to focus really hard not to let his eyes stray downwards to her chest, or to keep from doing any embarrassing noises when Lydia presses in too close, all smooth skin and sleepy warmth radiating off of her.

He’s at his breaking point and already standing up to leave when Lydia’s phone beeps and since she’s in no state to answer (and honestly, Stiles doesn’t want to go back out to the real world), he picks it up for her.

Stiles is not what anyone would call tech savvy, so he has no idea how he ends up clicking on a video of the night before.

Well, at least now he has a face to put on the thing haunting his nightmares.

And it’s very likely Lydia saw it.

But there’s a chance that she didn’t and that she hasn’t seen the video, either. Stiles should delete it, but it could be important. He has no idea how to send the video to his own phone, he’s not even sure he’s going to manage to play again, so he mutters an apology to an unconscious Lydia and puts her phone in his pocket.

He goes back to his car and drives a couple of blocks towards the woods before stopping.

“Okay,” he says to himself, wrestling the phone back out of his pocket and staring at it. Calling Scott would be useless, even if he does pick up. Scott is even more lost than Stiles on what to do, and he’s with Allison, which means he’s even more distracted than usual. Stiles could go home and try to do some more research using the new image he has, but their problem is finding who the alpha is in human form. Researching about alphas in their wolf form won’t do any good.

Stiles sighs, dropping his head against the headrest. His only other choice is Derek, and Stiles really doesn’t want to.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Derek at least acknowledged him. But all he does every time they meet is either ignore him or dismiss him or ask him to mutilate him. Stiles is not expecting Derek to jump up and propose they play some video games or to sit down and reminisce, but they were close, once, and Stiles did nothing wrong. He really doesn’t deserve Derek being an ass to him.

He starts the car with another sigh and heads to the Hale house.

Despite himself, Stiles feels pretty safe while walking through the Hale property after he leaves his jeep hidden in the usual spot – knowing Derek is aware of everything that happens around his house should be creepy, but when there’re real monsters stalking the town, it’s actually reassuring.

When Stiles opens the front door Derek is hanging shirtless from a threshold, lifting himself up so his chin is above his white-knuckled hands and then lowering himself down, never touching the ground.

Between this and Lydia’s tiny nightgown, Stiles’ mental storage is bursting.

He stares – what else, right? – and waits until Derek decides he’s ready to pay attention to him.

It’s not long before he drops to the floor with a worrying creaking sound that makes Stiles step backwards, in case the house caves in or something.

“What’re you doing here?” Derek asks. His chest is glistening with sweat and Stiles lets himself appreciate it, because the last time he saw it Derek had almost died and Stiles was a little shaken up about it.

“What, are you the only one who can drop in unannounced to ask for help?”

There’s a pause. “I went to ask Scott for help.”

“Funny, since I was the one hauling your ass all through town and you didn’t even have to threaten me to make me do it.”

Derek looks away.

“I’m not backing off,” Stiles goes on. “I have no interest in seeing either Scott or you shot to death, in case you didn’t notice me trying to save your life.”

“You can’t help,” Derek says through gritted teeth.

“What the hell is this, the first grade?” Stiles throws his arms out. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do just because you’re stronger than me. I can help and I’ve been helping. Or been trying to, anyway.”

“I don’t want you to help,” Derek argues.

“Yeah, I got that. And guess what? I don’t care.”

He drags the phone out of his pocket and tosses it at Derek, who doesn’t even blink as he snatches it out of the air.

“What’s this?”

Stiles gives him a look. “A phone. I really hope that’s not what you’re asking, though.”

Derek glares at him.

“What do you want me to do with it,” he says, it’s not even a question. Stiles rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in front of him.

“Check the video.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“How?”

Stiles looks at Derek, who’s looking at him, daring him to say anything unhelpful. It should be funny, and yet somehow, standing in that house, it’s not.

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. He gathers up his nerve and walks closer. “Let me see.”

Derek’s breath hitting the side of his face doesn’t help Stiles concentrate but, after a few fumbling attempts, the video finally plays.

It’s just as disturbing as the first time Stiles saw it, and he can feel Derek tensing next to him, something changing in the air around them. 

“Who’s phone is that?” Derek asks after a few seconds have passed, the Alpha’s horrifying face frozen on the screen. 

“Um.” 

“Is it the Argent girl’s friend’s?” Stiles gapes. “Or her boyfriend’s?” 

“How—Okay, how in the hell do you know that? How do you know _them_?”

Derek only gives him a look. 

“No, seriously. Do you stand outside our windows like a creepy stalker creep? When have you ever met them?”

“Is not that big of a town,” Derek says and hands the phone back to Stiles.

 _Yes, it is_ , Stiles wants to say. It’s on the tip of his tongue when Derek’s head snaps up and towards the front door. 

Stiles’ heart jumps to his throat and he clutches the phone to his chest, any word he was planning on saying a second ago evaporating from his mind as Derek’s face grows colder. 

“Get out of here,” he hisses and closes a hand around Stiles’ forearm to push him towards the back of the house. “Don’t make a noise.” 

Stiles stumbles out of the room, thinking how every time he steps foot in this house, something or other goes down. He’s about to turn around and ask Derek what to do about the video when there’s a crashing sound that makes him jump. Stiles whirls around and Derek is nowhere to be found. 

He hears footsteps coming from the front hall and hurries to the back, to what he thinks used to be the kitchen. His mind is filled with images of the Alpha, big and prowling around the house, red eyes scanning the rooms for them when a woman speaks up.

Stiles can’t hear at first, he can just make out a voice moving around, more than one set of footsteps echoing through the house. Then the woman turns a corner and her voice is as clear as if she was standing next to him.

“Too bad your sister bit it before she had her first litter,” the voice says and Stiles seizes up. He’s standing flat in a corner, still crushing the phone in a fist. He closes his eyes and hopes Derek doesn’t take the bait. “Too bad she howled like a bitch when we _cut her in half_!” 

There’s a growl, then, and a series of thumps that make Stiles push his back further into the wall, shoulder blades digging into the wood. The silence that follows is so absolute, Stiles stops breathing. He waits for Derek to make a sound, and then there’s a louder, heavier crash that sounds very close by. Stiles barely suppresses a yelp.

“Wow, this one grew up in all the right places,” the woman says from somewhere right behind the wall Stiles is leaning on. He can hear Derek groaning in what can only be pain and tries to think of anything he can do. The kitchen is completely bare, no helpful pile of planks or debris in sight. Though if this woman can take out a werewolf, Stiles doesn’t know how he could do anything to help, even if he had a weapon.

“Nine hundred-thousand volts,” the woman says and Stiles eyes bulge, now getting a pretty good idea of what’s happening. Derek groans again. “You were never good with electricity, were you? Or fire.”

Stiles read the Hale fire files so many times it’s not hard to picture the words _electrical failure, possible arson_ in blocky letters in front of his eyes. 

He looks around again, this time a little more frantic. He’s afraid to move – it’s so quiet that a false step could give him away. But Derek is out there, and whoever that woman is, she knows exactly what buttons to push. 

He listens with half an ear as she keeps talking, about Laura, about how the hunters weren’t the ones who killed her. 

“You think I’m lying,” the woman says, laughter in her voice. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Derek replies, and Stiles freezes all over again. He’s dying to ease his way to the doorway to see who the woman is. Derek obviously knows her. 

Keeping his body as close to the wall as he can, Stiles starts to slide to the side.

The woman tells Derek that the Alpha killed his sister – Stiles thought that was obvious, given the teeth marks, but apparently is news to Derek. Stiles vows to force Derek to listen to him from now on, as soon as they’re both out of immediate danger because he doesn’t seem to have the first clue as to what the hell is going on.

He keeps sliding down the wall towards the doorway, feet as light as he can make them. The woman wants Derek to tell her who the Alpha is and Derek is quiet. Stiles can picture his face, stony as ever, his glare still in place even through the pain.

“Unless,” the woman musses just as Stiles is reaching the door. “You don’t know who he is either.” There’re footsteps drawing away. “Well, guess who just became totally useless.”

Stiles predicts what’s about to happen and can’t stop his body from jerking in surprise or preparation or _something_ , and he drops the phone with a clatter, fingers stiff with shock.

“Is someone here with you?” The woman asks as Stiles scrabbles for the phone as quietly as he can, his heart thumping in his ears. “Is your little pup friend keeping you company?” 

“No,” Derek snarls and Stiles takes a breath and starts crawling towards the other end of the room, towards the ruined back door.

“You’re not the only who can tell when someone’s lying, sweetheart,” he hears the woman say just before a rain of bullets rip through the wall where Stiles had been standing not a minute ago. 

Whit a yip, Stiles covers his head, cheek pressed against the floor. He’s on all fours as soon as the gunfire stops, making his way to the door as growls erupt behind him. He has to tell himself that Derek can heal, as long as they’re regular bullets, _let them be regular bullets_ , and he bursts outside and runs into the woods, not daring to look back.

He’s well past the tree line when he realizes someone’s running behind him, and he almost runs face first into a tree trying to see who it is. Derek is just a few feet away, and he could easily pass Stiles but he’s keeping himself between the crazy woman with the gun and Stiles’ back. 

They stop after a few minutes, when it’s clear no one’s following them. Stiles doubles over, panting. 

“Are you okay?” He and Derek ask at the same time, and Stiles looks up to see Derek staring down the path they came from. 

“Yeah,” he replies. Derek nods. “Who was that?”

He’s sure he’s not going to get an answer, and he’s ready to fight when Derek turns to him. “That’s Kate Argent.”

Allison’s aunt.

“Is she the one who shot you?” 

“Yes.”

“She knows you,” Stiles says, straightening up. “You know her. From before.”

Derek doesn’t reply this time, but doesn’t look away either. Stiles sighs, rubs at his face with a trembling hand. Things he doesn’t want to think about are starting to come together in his head. Scott told Stiles that, according to Derek, there was only one person who knew about him and his family, and that person was an Argent. That person trapped Derek’ family in their house and set it on fire even though some people inside were humans and kids that had never done a harmful thing in their lives. 

Even though there was a code between wolves and hunters and the Hales were following it.

“What do I do about the video?” Stiles asks, holding up the phone. 

“Delete it,” Derek says. 

It’s surprisingly easy to delete the video. Stiles just presses the little garbage can icon at the top of the screen and it’s gone. It’s a bit underwhelming.

“Now what?” 

“Now you stay the hell away from here.”

“Hey—”

“Stiles, you can’t be _seen around me_ ,” Derek snaps and Stiles closes his mouth, falling back a step. “They don’t know about Scott yet. But they will, soon enough. Especially if he keeps hanging around the Argent girl. You’ll be the fist to pop in their radar when that happens.”

“I know that,” Stiles says. 

“Do you? Because let me remind you, you’re not the one who can survive getting shot.”

“I _know_ that,” Stiles repeats, this time through gritted teeth. 

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” 

“I told you, I’m helping!” 

“Well, _don’t_.”

Stiles sends a pleading look up at the sky. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation a hundred times already.”

“Stiles-”

“Did the video help? In any way?”

Derek huffs, mouth thinning into a line. Stiles makes an impatient sound, gesturing for him to talk.

“I just know he’s strong,” Derek finally says. “Not as strong as Laura, but stronger than me.” 

“How do you know that?”

“I thought you researched this.”

Stiles glares. “Indulge me.”

“His…shift is only halfway through.”

Stiles nods. His legs still feel unsteady, but he seems to have control of his hands now. He stuffs the phone back in his pocket. 

“He can still get stronger, then.” 

“I guess.” 

Derek looks resigned, but his body is still stiff and set to bolt at a moment’s notice. Stiles forces himself to grin.

“See, this is good.” He gestures between them. “Communication.”

Derek eyes him like he’s not sure how to go on from here.

“What now?” Stiles asks. “You can’t go back in there.” 

“I’ll wait until they’re gone,” Derek replies.

“You could do that.” Stiles steels himself. “Or you could come to my place. Stay for a few hours. My dad’s not gonna be home for a while.” 

“No,” Derek says and wow, way to turn a guy down easy.

“I have food. And a shower. And walls and working doors. With locks.”

“No,” Derek says again, something around his eyes loosening for a second, before he looks away again. 

“What are you gonna do, stay in the woods all night? You’re half naked!”

“Not your problem.”

Stiles is so done, he doesn’t even bother to say one more word. He just turns in the direction he thinks he left his jeep in and starts walking. Derek follows a few paces behind. 

“Not my problem, he says,” he mutters, knowing Derek can hear him. He’s being as quiet as he can, trying not to step on any branches or dead leaves. “What has to happen to make it my problem? Does my best friend have to try to kill me? Does my dad have to arrest you? Do you have to ask me to cut off your arm? Oh, wait.”

Derek, of course, is silent. 

-

It’s funny how you can live your whole life not knowing werewolves exist and then once you do it’s nearly impossible to remember a time when you lived in happy ignorance. 

Stiles is thinking about this the following Monday, sitting in class and gritting his teeth in anger. 

Just when he thought things couldn’t get more messed up, his dad had to go and get injured. And okay, it was an honest accident and it could have happened any other day, except it happened during a collective freak out that wouldn’t have been so big if dead bodies hadn’t been appearing in town for weeks, all supposedly animal attacks. 

Stiles is one-hundred percent sure someone let loose that mountain lion in the school’s parking lot on purpose. He’s undecided between the Argents and the Alpha. Either way, people are definitely calmer and the curfew (that no one was keeping anyway) has been lifted. 

His dad is still limping and on pain medication, though, and Stiles is still angry because Scott was _there_ when Stiles _wasn’t_ and he still couldn’t keep his dad safe.

Scott is genuinely sorry, if the amount of voicemails he’s left Stiles is anything to go by. Stiles deleted the first couple, the ones that were just a string of apologies and attempts at an explanation. Then Scott told him (or his answering service) about how Derek was training him, and how he saw the Alpha while leaving Allison’s house and Stiles listened to those messages at least three times.

He doesn’t know what the spiral means – it’s not the first time it has popped up and it’s surely important, but his mind was too scattered over the weekend to do proper research. Derek knows, Stiles is sure of it, and is keeping it to himself.

Then Scott left a last message the night before, telling Stiles how Derek showed up at his house. 

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” Scott said, obviously a ploy to get Stiles to talk to him. Stiles shouldn’t fall for it, but it’s important and he has to know. 

So when Scott walks into the classroom and sits behind him, Stiles can only ignore him for a few seconds. He can feel Scott’s kicked puppy look even without turning. 

“If I were talking to you I would ask what Derek said. But obviously I’m not talking to you,” Stiles says, eyes fixed firmly ahead. Scott is quiet and it’s another four seconds before Stiles caves and turns around. “What did he say?”

Scott beams before telling Stiles how Derek wants him to get angry to get better control of his shift. Stiles has seen his life flash before his eyes every time Scott had gotten angry since he was bitten, so he can’t say he’s on board with the idea. 

But he is on board with the plan of helping Scott control himself. He’s a big fan of that plan. So he sneaks into the locker room in between periods and steals the Coach’s cell phone and portable heart rate monitor. 

Even as he’s bombarding Scott with Lacrosse balls, throwing them as hard as he can and aiming for soft spots, Stiles thinks he’s a better Yoda than Derek. And honestly, this is the most fun he’s had in weeks. 

It takes a while, but eventually Scott’s heart starts to speed up. Once he’s calmed down, he tells Stiles, “Derek’s right. The angrier I got, the stronger I felt.”

“I thought we knew that already,” Stiles replies, leaning down over Scott, who’s crouching on the floor, still panting.

“I can’t be around Allison.” 

Stiles is thrown for a moment, he thought they were already past the ‘trying to get Scott to stop seeing Allison’ idea. 

“Just because she makes you happy?” He asks and isn’t that a depressing thought. 

Scott looks up at him. “No, because she makes me weak.”

Stiles can’t help but think of Derek and wonder what keeps him grounded and what sets him off. He’s in better control than Scott but there’s got to be a catch to it. 

He still thinks the solution is not to isolate Scott from all human interaction forever. There just has to be a way for him to get a hang of his transformation. Also, Scott trying to avoid Allison, though freaking hilarious, is painful to watch. Scott is not one for subtlety.

“You’ve seen Derek,” Scott tells him when Stiles tries to talk to him about other ways to go around the problem. “The guy is totally alone.”

Stiles has nothing to say to that, actually doesn’t feel like talking at all anymore, and he just lets Scott continue to be his dramatic self on his own. 

He’s not sure which idea he likes the least: that Derek is alone because he has the social skills of a rock, or because he thinks having people around would leave him defenceless.

After economics class, it’s pretty obvious Allison has a direct effect on Scott’s heart rate. Only before she used to make him go crazy and shift, but lately she’s having the opposite effect. 

“I’m in love with her,” Scott says in wonder, his expression dreamy, and then he’s lost to the world.

They wait for Derek after school, because Scott said he was going to pick him up to help him. They lean against Stiles’ jeep in silence, Stiles shutting down every attempt at a conversation.

“You’re still mad at me,” Scott murmurs as they watch the parking lot getting progressively empty. “I can’t have you mad at me. Not now.” 

He feels _kinda_ bad about giving Scott the silent treatment – but he is still angry, only his anger has sort of twisted into itself and he’s not sure the reason anymore. He only knows there’s this feeling in the pit of his stomach that grows heavier and heavier everyday and something that feels like an electric current running down his arms and making him close his hands into fists whenever something bothers him. 

His temper was never volatile, but lately he makes himself nervous. 

Derek never shows up. They wait until they’re the only people left at school. 

“Don’t you have his number?” Stiles asks. It’s the first he’s spoken in a while and Scott jumps slightly.

“He broke my phone,” he says. 

“Of course.”

“I’m gonna get to work. I’m already late.” 

He sounds defeated and Stiles sighs, he needs Scott to _understand_.

“Whether you want it or not, you can do things that nobody else can do. That means you don’t have a choice anymore. It means you _have_ to do something.”

Help Derek, catch the Alpha, stop the Argents from doing more damage. Stiles will be happy if Scott does something – anything – besides worrying about Allison.

What Scott ends up deciding to do is so unbelievable stupid, Stiles has to go along with it. On one hand, he can’t leave Scott alone, but there’s also the adventure factor. It’s the same feeling he got that time, a thousand years ago, when he went to Scott to go look for a dead body in the woods. The feeling that he’s risking his life but he’s _helping_ , so nothing bad can actually happen. 

Did he mention he scares himself sometimes?

-

So, what happens is this.

Stiles is not even home ten minutes when Scott calls him.

“You have to pick me up at the vet,” he says, sounding panicked. 

“What? Why?” Stiles is already rushing down the stairs, making sure his keys are in his pocket. 

“Derek lost his mind.”

Stiles almost falls the rest of the way down. “What happened?” He asks as he trips through the last couple of steps and heads for the front door. 

“He thinks my boss is the alpha,” Scott says. “He _tied him up to a chair_.”

“Oh, my God,” Stiles mutters. He gets into his jeep and puts his phone on speaker as he turns the ignition. “Why your boss?” 

“The spiral.” Scott’s voice sounds tiny and far away. 

“What about it?”

“Derek says it means revenge.”

Stiles frowns, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “So,” he prompts.

“He says that the alpha is not going to stop killing people until it’s satisfied.” 

“But _why your boss_?” Stiles repeats. 

“I don’t know.”

“Jesus, of course you don’t,” he mutters, turning a sharp left. He’s going to have to take his car to a shop soon, Stiles has been mistreating it since this whole mess began. 

“What? I can’t hear you!”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Stiles says, louder, and ends the call. 

What the hell could Derek be thinking? Is he really that desperate? No, Stiles thinks. If Derek were really desperate he would be asking Stiles for help.

When Stiles gets to the clinic, Scott is waiting for him outside. He steps on the breaks as Scott runs to the passenger side and jumps in. 

“We’re going to school,” he says, breathless. 

“Where’s Derek?” 

“He just left. He took Deaton, they’re meeting us there.”

“Okay.” Stiles is not entirely sure what’s going on, but he drives to school anyway. Scott tells him his plan on the way.

“Are you being serious right now?” Stiles asks him. 

“Yeah, it’s a good plan,” Scott snaps, sounding offended. 

Stiles sighs. “If it works, what’re you planning on doing when the alpha’s in front of you?”

“We’ll fight him, Derek and me.” 

Stiles opens his mouth to argue – Scott can barely control his shift, he doesn’t know the first thing about fighting and the alpha is twice his size and has ten times his strength – but instead he just makes a frustrated noise and keeps on driving. 

Maybe he’s still angry, at both Scott and Derek, or maybe he’s willing to step aside and see just how this so-called plan works, to give Scott a chance. 

He’s probably just angry, though. 

So they meet Derek at the school’s parking lot and check that Deaton is still alive and (mostly) unharmed. Derek barely looks at Stiles, which is something that Stiles is starting to get used to but still makes him grit his teeth. 

Breaking into the school is ridiculously easy – between this and the morgue Stiles is starting to lose his faith in Beacon Hills and its security measures. He would talk to his dad about it, except then he’d have to confess a couple of things he’d rather keep quiet about. 

If Stiles weren’t so angry, he would laugh at Scott forever about his first attempt at a howl. He can only imagine the face Derek makes when he hears it through the speaker system. The second howl, though, sends a chill running through Stiles’ spine. And Scott looks so damned proud of himself that Stiles can feel his anger starting to ebb away. 

“What the hell was that?” Derek asks them when they get back outside, glaring at Scott. 

Stiles is feeling vindictive, so when Derek continues to berate Scott for his stupid plan, Stiles butts in. 

“Come on, don’t be such a sourwolf,” he says and Derek gives him a horrible look. At least he’s acknowledging him. 

And that’s about the point everything goes to hell. 

When they realize Deaton is gone, Stiles has about two seconds to start to come up with an explanation when he looks over Derek’s shoulder and sees a pair of bright red eyes staring back at him. 

Words die in his mouth. He takes a step backwards, lifting his hand to point, to warn them. His limbs feel like they’re made of sand and he swears time slows down. He sees the giant shadow coming closer, Derek still looking at him and Scott before his eyes go wide and he chokes out a splatter of blood onto his shirt. Stiles looks down at Derek’s chest to see the alpha’s claws sprouting out of it in a bloody mess. And then Derek is flying, hurled away like he’s weightless and landing ten feet away, immobile. 

Stiles is frozen in place, staring at Derek’s body, waiting for him to get up or move or make a noise. But Scott is grabbing at him and pulling him away before Derek can show any sign of life, and then they’re running towards the school, the alpha at their heels. 

-

Stiles paces, unable to stay still. 

“Your boss is the alpha,” he says to Scott, who splutters and denies it. “He disappears and that thing shows up ten seconds later to throw Derek twenty feet through the air? That’s not convenient timing,”

His voice is shaky; he can’t stop thinking about it, about Derek’s eyes wide and shocked, looking helplessly down at his mangled chest.

“It can’t be,” Scott argues. 

“He killed Derek.”

“Derek’s not dead! He can’t be—”

“Blood sprouted out of his mouth, that doesn’t qualify as a minor injury. He’s _dead_.” 

And the last thing Stiles said to him was an insult. 

Stiles tried to see if Derek was still lying where they had left him, earlier when he risked his neck to grab the pliers they used to lock the door. But his jeep was in the way and Stiles was frantic with fear, so he couldn’t get a good look. 

But can werewolves survive loosing a chunk out of their chest? There’re a lot of valuable organs in the way – Stiles can’t imagine Derek picking himself up and walking away after that. 

Actually Stiles can’t imagine anything that’s not getting the hell out of here at the moment, so he puts what little hope he has of Derek being alright to the side and concentrates on figuring out what to do. 

The plan of getting to his jeep is ruined when the alpha (Deaton?) throws the battery through the window, nearly braining Scott. 

“We need to get to somewhere with no windows,” Stiles says, crouching on the floor. 

“We should call your dad,” Scott says and _no_. He’s not making his dad come to a place where he could get rip to shreds by a red-eyed monster. “We could grab Derek’s car.”

“I’m not patting Derek down for his keys,” Stiles says, his mind helpfully replacing Derek with Dead Body in his head. For a second he’s sure he’s going to be sick, but it passes quickly. 

The locker room is, as the rest of the school, dark and quiet and incredibly creepy. Stiles knows it’s useless to hide from a werewolf. He’s pretty sure they can hear and smell things Stiles is not even aware his body is doing. But the instinct of putting something solid between him and the claws that ripped through a ribcage is stronger than his common sense. 

Which is why they end up cowering inside the lockers when they hear something outside the room and they panic.

And everything that happens next is a blur.

A janitor finds them and throws them out, only to be the alpha’s dinner. Stiles and Scott run the hell out of there, the man’s screams echoing around them but Stiles is not thinking about it. He’s not thinking about anything, he’s just focusing on running and breathing. 

“Let’s go downstairs,” Stiles pants. There’s a stitch on his side and his throat feels raw. “The basement. No windows there.” 

They race downstairs, the alpha growling behind them. It makes horrible noises as he chases them through the school, crashing into walls and snapping his teeth. They lose him in a corner, somehow. Though Stiles is sure that if they lost him, then the alpha wanted them to. 

The basement is damp and dark, filled with little noises that make them jump. They don’t say a word as they inch through the narrow hallway. Stiles isn’t even sure they’re not cornering themselves in an underground death trap, so when he sees the door, he acts.

He sacrifices his car keys and throws them into the empty room, making enough noise to attract the alpha’s attention. Three hundred pounds of growling muscles and fur jump into the small room with a gigantic thump and instantly turns it giant fangs towards them. 

They barricade the door.

“I love it when plans work,” Stiles mutters under his breath, slumping against the desk they’re using as an oversized door stopper as they listen to the wolf getting increasingly angry, growling and throwing himself against the walls inside. 

“We should go,” Scott says. The alpha hits the door again. 

“We’re not scared of you!” Stiles shouts, thinking he would be more convincing if he dared to look through the little window on the door and into the thing’s eyes, but he’s sure doing so will only make the memory of the hole through Derek’s body more vivid. “Because you’re in there and we’re out here and you’re not going anyw—”

Stiles meets Scott’s startled gaze at the sound of plaster breaking. He scrambles up the desk and peers into the room, only to see it empty, a hole in the roof. 

They trip over each other as they run away. 

“Maybe we should leave now,” Stiles says as they go back upstairs. “While it’s stuck in the vent system. Run to the road and…” He trails off when Scott stops dead in front of him, head tilted to the side. “What?”

“A phone’s ringing,” Scott mutters. 

They meet Allison in the lobby, Stiles’ plan of running to the closest road and hitch a ride vanishing in his head as he listens to Allison tell Scott about the text she got from him (that Scott definitely didn’t send because Derek broke his phone). He cuts in before the whole thing can get any more tangled up with questions and assumptions. 

“Did you drive here?” He asks Allison, who looks at him as if she’s just realizing he’s there. 

“Jackson did,” she says and Stiles suppresses a groan. 

“Jackson’s here?” Scott asks just as Jackson and Lydia burst through the door. Stiles’ stomach drops, the last person he wants to see here is Lydia.

They don’t have time to explain (or lie through their teeth) before there’s a crunching sound and the alpha falls into the room and they’re running again. Stiles makes sure to run behind Lydia and Jackson, blocking their view of the giant monster chasing them as Scott steers Allison, keeping her back turned. 

They stumble into a classroom, everyone asking questions at once. Of course the room they chose is practically made of glass, as windows cover the biggest wall in the room.

Scott seems to be in shock as everyone resumes with their questions, shouting and trembling. Stiles watches from the side, feeling numb. There really isn’t much they can say to explain the giant creature that chased them down the school. Not much aside from the truth. 

But Allison’s family are hunters, and not exactly law abiding ones. 

Lydia was a mess the last time she was in close proximity with the alpha, Stiles saw her drugged and scared out of her mind. 

And Jackson…well, he doesn’t give a shit about Jackson, but he doesn’t look like he would be able to handle the pressure. 

Scott is slouching over a desk, deaf to the questions being fired at him, getting tenser by the second and Stiles can’t let him lose control now. So he steps in and talks.

“Somebody killed the janitor,” he says and thinks _not Derek, though, because Derek is most likely holed up somewhere, healing_. 

That takes the attention off Scott, and then everyone is focused on him, their eyes wild and scared as they ask him who did it. 

Stiles swallows, looks at Lydia’s tearful eyes and hates that she got dragged into this. He opens his mouth so reply, say the word that will probably make them all look at him like he’s insane. 

“Derek,” Scott says. Stiles has a dizzying moment where he thinks Derek is actually there, and Scott is talking to him. His heart leaps to his throat before he realizes what Scott is actually saying. “It was Der—”

“Scott!” Stiles cuts him off, voice shaking. “ _Don’t_.”

“Derek Hale killed the janitor?” Jackson asks, incredulous, and Stiles doesn’t want to know how he knows him. He can’t keep his gaze off of Scott, who looks so incredibly betrayed Stiles wants to throw something at him. The anger makes a quick comeback, warming Stiles in a second. 

“Yes,” Scott says to Jackson, eyes on Stiles. 

“ _No_ ,” Stiles counters, “Derek was attacked. He’s outside, by my car.” 

“No, he isn’t.” 

Stiles whirls around to see Lydia, pale and shaken but put together. 

“What?” He asks, hope erasing every other emotion in him for the moment. “He’s not there?”

“No.” Lydia sounds so sure that Stiles could kiss her, except that would only earn him a slap or mace in his eyes or Jackson beating the crap out of him. 

“ _See_?” Scott insists. 

“ _Dude_ , stop it.” Stiles’ voice doesn’t hold half the bite it did a moment before and the sudden sense of relief makes him see everything much clearer. “This isn’t a freaking game. Derek didn’t do anything, okay? We don’t know who’s after us.”

Scott opens his mouth to argue but Jackson speaks over them.

“I don’t care who it is, okay? I want to get out of here.”

“Never thought we’d agree on something,” Stiles tells him.

“Call the cops.”

“Well that was over quickly.” Stiles runs his hands over his face. There’s nowhere safe to look – it’s either scared girls, angry Scott or _Jackson_ , so Stiles stares out the windows.

“What do you mean? Call your useless dad so he can get us out.”

“No,” Stiles snaps at him. “I said no. Wanna hear it in Spanish? _Noh_.”

Jackson looks about to bash his face in, but Stiles is not backing down.

“ _I’ll_ call them,” Lydia says and takes out her phone. Everyone keeps Stiles from stopping her, even Scott. And when it turns out the station has been warned about prank calls, Stiles shrugs them off of him and steps away, hiding his relief as everyone freaks out. 

Allison is in Scott’s face, demanding answers, and Scott is looking more and more panicked. So Stiles drags him away from the questions and calms him down. He doesn’t bother to say anything about how he threw Derek under the bus, even if Derek was only there because he went along with their stupid plan. 

Scott is angry at him and Stiles is angry at Scott, there’s no need to say anything aloud. Instead Scott says, “Derek said it wants revenge.” And Stiles replies, “Maybe that’s it.” Even though he has no idea what’s going on. 

Jackson loses what little patience he has and tries to take Stiles phone away, and it feels so fucking good to let his fist fly and connect with Jackson’s perfect face that he’s hoping for an excuse to do it again. 

Everyone is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. Lydia looks so scared and Scott is begging him silently as he holds Allison close. Stiles caves. 

Then the alpha starts trying to bring down the door, and Stiles has time to leave a quick message on his dad’s phone before they’re running upstairs and into the chemistry lab. 

“We can go up to the roof through here,” Scott says, pointing to a door on a far wall. He’s so close to losing it Stiles is scared to be locked in a room with him. “And to Jackson’s car.” 

The janitor probably has the keys to the door, and Scott wants to go get them. He can follow the scent of the blood and be back quicker than any of them. Stiles agrees with Allison on what a terrible idea it is. Even with his wolf strength, Scott is no match to the alpha. 

That’s when Lydia becomes about a hundred times hotter and teaches them how to make a Molotov cocktail. Stiles’ honestly not sure _why_ he’s turned on, but despite everything, he is. 

Scott is gone twenty minutes – time in which Jackson manages to get too handsy with Allison and be an ass to Lydia – when a terrifying howl rips through the school. 

It’s nothing like Scott’s, it’s stronger and louder and it freezes Stiles’ blood in his body. It seems to go on forever, and then Jackson drops to his knees in front of him, groaning in pain. Stiles sees the claw marks on his neck and is barely even surprised. At this point Jackson could be turning into a monster himself and Stiles wouldn’t be shocked.

He’s about to ask anyway, with little hope of getting an answer, when a second howl joins the first one. This one is fainter, it comes from further away and Stiles’ head snaps to the windows. It’s coming from the woods. It’s short and weaker and it’s definitely not nearby. 

Stiles runs around Jackson and presses his forehead on the windowpane, looking far out into the trees. 

Somewhere out there Derek is attracting the alpha’s attention. 

There’s a bang from downstairs, and Stiles sees the alpha coming out of the school right below him and disappear into the darkness. 

A second later, the sound of sirens fills the air. 

They find Scott making his way back from the gym, looking weary, and the five of them meet Stiles’ dad outside. 

-

It’s around three am when an officer drops Stiles off at his house. The place looks dark and still, and the officer tells him she’ll wait until Stiles is inside to leave. He waves at her from the front door, before closing it and leaning against it to breathe. 

It took him a while after they were out of the school to realize he was seriously panicking, and had to go sit on the steps to calm himself down before going back to Scott. 

They had found the janitor’s body in the bleachers, signs of an animal attack all over the place, though no one could explain how the body had ended up in there. Stiles had cut a look at Scott when he had tried to start with the Derek tale again, to his dad of all people, and Scott had shut up with a sulk. 

Let everyone think there’s another mountain lion on the loose, for now.

“He could have easily killed us,” Scott told Stiles when they were alone. “I think he wants me in his pack. But first I have to get rid of my old pack.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles asked, head still spinning. “What old pack?” 

“Allison, Jackson, Lydia.” Scott looked at him. “You.”

He thought the alpha wanted Scott to kill them himself. 

Stiles wants to know when Scott came to consider Jackson and Lydia on the same friendship-level as Stiles. He doesn’t remember them even looking their way when Scott couldn’t score a point in Lacrosse if his life depended on it, or before he got the beautiful girlfriend. If Scott had to kill anyone to get rid of an _old_ pack, then it’d have to be Stiles and Stiles alone. 

Deaton turned up, badly hurt and sitting in an ambulance. It was still suspicious, his timing, but Stiles was too tired to spin any more theories for the night. 

And now here he is. His dad is still at school and will probably stay there all night. Stiles needs to crash, but he has to take a moment before he can face the stairs. 

He turns on every light on the way up. 

He’s standing just outside his bedroom door when he realizes something feels wrong.

 _Déjà-vu_ , he thinks when he inches open his door and there’s a hulking shadow in the corner of the room. Stiles doesn’t need to turn on any light to know who it is. He steps inside quietly and closes the door behind him.

Derek’s breathing is loud and slow. It’s all Stiles can hear. After a couple of seconds, when his eyes adjust, he can see that Derek’s head is hanging down to his chest, his hands on his lap, his legs crossed. It looks like the most uncomfortable position anyone could have chosen to rest, and Derek still looks as peaceful as Stiles has seen him (lately at least). It’s still too dark to see if there’s any blood, or more accurately, how much blood there is. But Stiles doesn’t bother with the lights. 

He walks to his bed and crawls on top of it, kicking off his shoes on the way. The thud they make as they hit the floor doesn’t seem to register in Derek. He doesn’t even stir. Stiles lies on his side, facing the werewolf resting in his room. He stares at his shadowed profile and can’t help but picture the old Derek sitting there, scared and grieving, coming to say goodbye. 

“Derek,” he whispers, half expecting Derek to ignore him. But his head lifts and his eyes open, shinning bright blue. “Do you need anything?” 

Derek huffs and lowers his head again. Stiles thinks that means no.

“Derek,” he calls again. “Are you okay?” 

This time there’s no answer, only Derek’s deep breaths. Stiles stares at him, thinking about how painful it must be to heal this kind of injury. 

“It tried to get Scott to kill us,” he says. “The alpha did. It made Allison and Jackson and Lydia go to the school and he wanted to control Scott into killing us.”

Stiles thinks that if the alpha can’t get Scott to kill them, then he will do it himself. He’s sure of it. It’s been killing people for weeks, a couple more kids shouldn’t be a problem for him.

“He sent a text to Allison somehow, and signed it as Scott.” Derek’s head is tilted slightly to the side, his eyes still closed. “I’m not sure if the fact that he’s better at phones than us is depressing or hilarious.”

Stiles shifts to lie on his back, his hands behind his head. 

“Did you see my room when you broke in? It looks a lot better than the last time you were here.” 

For some reason Stiles can’t even phantom, his eyes start stinging. _It’s been an emotional day_ , he tells himself, _but you’re not going to cry in front of Derek Hale_.

He wonders if Derek can smell it, anyway. That would be awkward. 

“What a shitty day, huh?” He says, because talking keeps everything else at bay. “Sometimes I think I’m a terrible friend.”

And he didn’t mean to say that out loud, but now that he did he can’t keep guilt from drowning him. 

“Why?”

Stiles startles. Derek’s voice sounds wrecked, raspy, like it hurts him to talk, which Stiles has no doubt about. 

“Well, I don’t know how much you know but I’m the one that made Scott go to the woods when he got bitten.” Stiles has always followed a ‘what’s done it’s done’ attitude through life. When his mother got sick, she used to tell him it was useless to wish she hadn’t or to wonder what things would be like if she was well. 

At the time Stiles hadn’t been able to see what she meant, until she was gone and Stiles was left to see his dad beat himself up over something that had been completely out of anyone’s control. It had clicked then, and Stiles had worked so hard to keep from anything bad to happen to him or his dad or their house. 

That’s actually about the time Derek had first broken into his room, he remembers now. Derek was the one that needled Stiles until he was ready to leave the house again. Him and Scott, though Scott had no idea at the time that Stiles had spent a year holed up in his room, only leaving to go to school. 

And then Derek had taken him camping and his family had died, and Scott went with him to the woods and got turned into a fucking werewolf. 

Sometime Stiles is surprised Scott is still talking to him. 

“You didn’t know that was going to happen,” Derek mutters and Stiles hums at the ceiling.

“I knew there could be something in the woods, that’s why I wanted to go. My dad was there, because…because of the, um, the body.”

He glances at Derek, his dark shape unmoving. 

“Your car is still at the school,” he says, changing the subject. “You should report it as stolen before you get arrested again.” 

He bites his tongue – two touchy subjects in as many seconds, that has to be a record. 

“And thank you. For getting the alpha to back off.”

Derek is quiet. Stiles can still hear him breathing, he wonders if he’s asleep. 

Being as careful as he can, he rolls off the bed and lands crouching on the floor. He pads closer to Derek, waiting for his eyes to adjust further. Derek’s shirt is dark with blood, as well as his hands. Stiles thinks he sees the tear in the fabric, and reaches out to check the wound underneath. His fingers barely graze Derek’s shirt when his head snaps up, eyes open and glowing, his hand wrapped around Stiles’ wrist. 

“Just wanted to check the wound,” he says, a little breathless. Derek’s eyes light up his face – it looks a lot like the time he got shot, pale and clammy, and the sight makes Stiles’ stomach churn. “Do you see any different when you do that?”

Derek blinks and his eyes go back to normal, his face back in shadows. “I see better,” he says. 

“And these?” Stiles lifts his trapped arm, gesturing to Derek’s claws. “Do they hurt? Coming out?” 

“No.” The claws retract, and Derek drops his arm. Heat is radiating out of him in worrying amounts. It’s probably part of the healing process, but Stiles feels warm just sitting close to him. 

“I’m sorry we got you stabbed,” Stiles says when the silence is too much and he still hasn’t moved away. 

“It was a ridiculous idea,” Derek replies, groaning slightly as he drops his head against the wall. Stiles can barely see, but the line of Derek’s throat is very white and very long. 

“Yeah.” Stiles swallows. He should move away now. There’s no reason why he should be this close to Derek, who smells of sweat and dirt and sounds like he needs to sleep for a week straight. But he presses his knees to Derek’s crossed legs and stays there.

In the morning Derek will probably be gone, and Stiles’ father had looked at him as he got into the cruiser that brought him home, and promised a serious talk when he got home. 

As much as Stiles wants to pass out for the night, he stays on the floor, sitting up and waiting for Derek to finish healing. Anything to make tomorrow come slower. 

He’s not sure how much time passes, but Derek looks asleep again. Stiles can see him perfectly fine now. His face looks very different when his eyebrows are not scrunched down and his mouth is slack. He looks a little like the Derek he remembers from before.

“I missed you,” Stiles tells him, not caring if Derek hears him. And he still misses him, because who came back is not the same person, just someone that looks like him and sometimes sounds like him. “It’s not fair that you only talk to me when you need help.”

Derek’s eyebrows twitch, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Even if I got you stabbed.” 

-

He feels like he’s flying, head heavy and dull, body moving of its own accord. He has a dizzying moment in which he’s falling and falling but he never fully wakes up. He lands somewhere soft and warm and familiar. There’s something pressing down on his shoulder for what feels like hours, and the last conscious thought he has before everything fades away is how he misses the small weight when it’s gone.

-

Stiles wakes up in his bed, the sun hitting his face. His window is closed and it has to be midmorning for the light to be on that particularly annoying angle. He lays under the sheets, trying to remember what day it is before the events of the day before come crashing back. 

He snaps his head to the far corner of his room only to find it empty. He can’t remember how the night ended or when he fell asleep. All that he has is a blurry memory of being helped to bed.

His leg muscles are sore when he walks to the bathroom, and his head is throbbing. It’s a little disheartening to realize these are things that he’s come to expect in the morning.

It’s only when he returns to his room that he sees the notebook on his desk. It’s open to a random page, covered in math scribbles and a phone number on the upper corner, scratched over and written again two times below the message _just for emergencies_.

-

“Stiles,” his dad greets him later when Stiles enters the kitchen. He’s still in his uniform, probably just came back from work, and Stiles is in his boxers and a t-shirt, bleary-eyed and feeling a little sick. 

“Dad,” he replies, sending him a lazy salute as he inspects the fridge. 

“Sit down, son.”

Stiles sighs at a half empty carton of eggs. He stalls, gathering milk and butter and, for some reason, a bottle of mustard in his arms before he turns around. His dad is looking at him like he doesn’t know if he wants to be amused or disgusted, and Stiles quirks his mouth up in what he hopes passes for a smile. 

Going by the way his dad’s face falls instantly, Stiles is pretty sure he fails. 

He sits down, his cluster of food like armour in front of him. His dad is nursing a mug of coffee. The pot on the counter looks almost empty, so Stiles guesses it’s not his dad’s first cup of the day. At the moment, Stiles is sure mentioning it would only earn him a lapful of coffee, so he keeps his mouth shut. 

“First of all,” his dad sighs, “you look like crap. Are you okay?” 

“Ah, I’m fine. The dead body just didn’t agree with me, that’s all.” 

His dad winces and Stiles wants to bite his tongue off. 

“Explain to me what were you and your friends doing at school in the middle of the night.” 

“Well,” Stiles begins, setting the milk and butter on the table. He keeps the mustard, turning the container in his hands. “We were going to…you know the year is almost out. The school year, I mean. And we were going to do a prank. Um, turn some faucets on and clog some sinks. Maybe write some naughty stuff on the boards?”

His dad’s eyes are tired. He watches in silence as Stiles lies through his teeth. Maybe if he had thought of a decent excuse before now he would sound more convincing. 

“Was Derek with you?”

Stiles looks quickly back to the mustard before his face can betray anything.

“Stiles.”

“No,” Stiles says. His foot tapping against the floor in jerky little jumps. “No, we…we took his car. For a joyride. It was stupid.”

“You did, huh.” His dad looks down at his coffee. He’s quiet for a few seconds and Stiles can sense something coming. A disappointed speech or some sort of punishment. “Where exactly did you find his car?”

Or a trap. 

Stiles’ mind reels. He doesn’t look away from his dad, but their eyes don’t meet. His dad knows what he’s doing, the fact that he’s given up with the direct questions is telling and not something Stiles is going to worry about right now. He just thinks about Derek and his car. 

Did he see the car the last time he was at the Hale house? Derek ran out of there with him, and he had been half naked at the time. The next time he saw him was at school, the car and his clothes with him. He had either gone back to the house or somewhere in town. 

“We found it on the way to school,” he says, finally. “I took it and Scott drove my jeep. The keys were inside.”

His dad looks up. 

“Derek reported it stolen earlier this morning. He’s not going to press charges.” 

“Okay,” Stiles says, letting out a breath. “I’ll…I’ll call him and apologize.”

His dad slams a hand on the table and Stiles jumps, fingers jerking and dropping the bottle on the floor. “You’re not going to call him, Stiles! What the hell were you thinking? What were you doing in that place? What are you doing taking people’s cars? Didn’t I tell you to stay _away_ from Derek?”

“I didn’t see Derek, just his—”

“ _Stop_.” 

“But Dad,” Stiles insists, he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“People are getting killed all over town,” his dad says, calmer. “I don’t want you running around at night.”

“They killed the mountain lion.”

“Still, someone else died last night.” A pause. “And it’s not the first time I found you at the scene of the crime.” 

Stiles stills, heart sinking. He looks at his dad, who looks a decade older all of a sudden. 

“Dad,” he begins but nothing else comes out. 

His dad sighs. 

“I’m going to bed.” He gets up to leave the mug in the sink and turns for the door. On the way out he calls, “And I don’t how what happened to your car, but you’re paying for it.”

His voice is just as flat as it was for most of the conversation, and Stiles can’t bring himself to reply, so he just slumps back in his chair and closes his eyes for a minute.

-

Everyone at school is talking about the pranksters that accidentally found a body in the gym, but no one seems to know who they were. There are a lot of theories going around, and bets about how long until someone else dies or they find the killer. People seem to have forgotten (or are ignoring) that it’s supposed to have been an animal attack. Stiles can’t blame them. 

There’s also a bunch of police officers standing around, probably half the station keeping watch and keeping people out of the gym. His dad is in a meeting with the principal, and Stiles waits outside the office for some gossip. 

It’s a full moon night, and Scott has been acting weird all day. Stiles read a while ago that all werewolves struggle during the full moon, even born werewolves. Even alphas.

His dad doesn’t look happy to see him when he steps out to the hall, so Stiles doesn’t bother with asking questions and just says, “Be careful tonight, Dad. Especially tonight.”

His dad looks like he’s holding back a few questions himself, but sends him off with a sigh.

It’s an odd day.

Scott has a breakdown in the middle of a test, and Stiles is forced to chase him through school, only to find him having a panic attack in the locker room showers. It’s easy to calm him down, Stiles knows about panic attacks. 

After the night before, Stiles is especially kind to Scott. His conversation with Derek is still fresh in his memory, all the guilt he has been suppressing hits him in waves every time he lets his mind wander. He’s not exasperated when Scott moans about Allison breaking up with him all through the day, even though he really thinks Scott should be worrying about everything else instead. He doesn’t let Scott’s weird mood affect him, it’s only the full moon.

During practice, Stiles is made probationary first line, and for a couple of adrenaline-fuelled minutes, he forgets about everything and lets himself be excited. A few months ago this would have made his _life_. 

Not even Scott’s lack of enthusiasm about making co-captain (despite Jackson’s obvious outrage) is enough to bring him down. He can’t ignore Scott knocking Danny down and giving him a bloody nose, though. If there’s someone that doesn’t deserve that, it’s _Danny_.

Scott keeps acting like a complete creep. 

“Holy shit,” Stiles gasps when he gets to Scott’s that night and finds him sitting alone in the dark. “Those lessons with Derek really paid off, didn’t they.”

“Stiles,” Scott replies, slow and with no inflection in his voice whatsoever. 

“Scott,” Stiles says. “You’re freaking me out.” 

He drops the bag of supplies at his feet. 

It takes some arguing, but Stiles manages to handcuff Scott to the radiator and step away from his hands as Scott reaches out, angry. _He’s not himself_ , Stiles has to repeat in his head, over and over while he listens to Scott go from begging to threatening to _screaming_ while Stiles sits outside his room.

He wonders how Derek is holding out, where he’s hiding. Maybe he’s back in Stiles’ room. Stiles is not sure how he feels about that. He feels the phone in his pocket, with Derek’s number already programmed in it, but doesn’t take it out.

He doesn’t take it out when Scott manages to wrench himself free and jump out the window. And he doesn’t take it out when he’s driving through the woods, no idea where to look first. 

When he comes across the ambulance and the police cars in the middle of the road, all thought vanishes from his head. All he can think about is _Dad_ and _No_ and _Please_ as he calls for his father and gets no answer. 

The panic doesn’t have time to settle before his dad is _there_ , asking him what he’s doing there and Stiles doesn’t have a lie ready but he doesn’t give a shit. For a second he had seen his father burnt beyond recognition and he had felt something shatter inside him. 

Much later, he gets a text from Derek (who is listed only as D on his phone, in case his dad goes snooping). 

_Scott is with me_.

Stiles notices the care he put on the sentence and pictures Derek spending ten minutes on that single line. He also pictures him grabbing Stiles phone while he slept and getting his number, but that image is a little more creepy. 

_goody_ , he sends back. 

He’s in bed after he managed to convince his dad to come home for the night. He can hear him talking on the phone downstairs. The sound of his voice, no matter how tired or pissed off or worried, keeps his breathing even and his heart-rate controlled. 

Stiles has a plan. He’s ready for this nightmare to be over.

-

Stiles knows there’s enough shit going on that this shouldn’t matter as much as it does, and yet he can’t help himself. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at his phone, fingers ready on the keys.

He’s written a dozen variations of the same text in the last fifteen minutes, and none seem appropriate. 

_come to my room_

_can you come to my room_

_emergency in my room_

_meet me in my room_

It’s the ‘my room’ part that bothers him, and he’s not sure why. He almost feels like every one of those sentences would work as a proposition and the thought of propositioning Derek makes him go a little hot under his collar. 

In the end he decides that he’s being ridiculous and sends a simple _need to talk, come over_ and hopes that Derek listens to him. 

He sends the same text to Scott’s new number and then calls him a couple of times, because you can never be sure with Scott and cell phones.

Stiles’ dad is at work, they haven’t talked about the night before. His dad just looked at him over breakfast, worried as Stiles slumped in his chair and tried to make conversation. 

Stiles is counting on this meeting to be the start of the end. If they can get organized, if they can agree to work together and tell each other what they know, maybe all this can be over. 

Scott shows up half an hour later. He rings the doorbell until Stiles is at the door and then sighs in relief when he sees him. 

“I thought you were hurt, I heard about the guys in the woods.” He smiles. “I was about to climb through your window.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want Allison to get jealous,” Stiles replies before his brain catches up with him and then he cringes as Scott’s face falls. “Sorry, buddy.”

“It’s okay,” Scott says, almost pouting. Stiles ushers him inside, an arm around his shoulders. 

“This is actually pretty good timing,” he goes as they climb up the stairs. “She’ll be out of danger while we deal with this, you’ll be out of her dad’s radar and then when the alpha is taken care of, we’ll get you two back together. You’ll see.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“You bet you guess.” Stiles slaps his shoulder. “We’ll figure this ouholy crap, don’t _do_ that!”

Derek is sitting at his desk, arms crossed in front of him. 

“You said to come over,” Derek says, his eyebrows going up. 

“You could use the door!” 

“Do you want your neighbours to tell your dad I’m here?”

“I-- Okay, you’ve got a point.” 

“Derek,” Scott grumbles, his shoulder tense under Stiles’ arm. “What the hell.”

“Okay, full disclosure time.” Stiles stands between them, sending Derek a look before turning back to Scott. “We’re all going to sit in a circle and say what we know, not leaving anything out, and then we’ll figure out a way to get the alpha and stop the bloodshed. I personally think this is a good goal to aim for.”

Scott is scowling, but he nods and Stiles grins at him before turning to Derek, whose nod is curt and short, but he’s (surprisingly) not frowning or glaring and is actually looking at him while there’s other people in the room.

“Okay,” Stiles says after Scott has made his way across the room to sit against the window. “I’ll start.”

He can’t bring himself to sit, so he paces.

“Scott, I…you know Derek.” 

“Yes?” Scott replies looking confused.

“Right, well, I’ve known Derek for a while. I knew him before…before I met you. And I knew there was something weird about him since then.”

“What—”

“I didn’t know about the whole werewolf thing. I figured that out after you got bitten.”

Stiles doesn’t dare look over his shoulder to where Derek is sitting. He doesn’t know if Derek wants Scott to know, but it feels so good to get it off his chest.

“That’s why you knew he wasn’t the killer,” Scott says after a moment. “That’s why you freaked out when we dug up the body.” 

Stiles closes his eyes. Derek’s stare makes the back of his neck burn. 

“I wasn’t sure for a while. But I knew after that night.”

Scott eyes dart between Stiles and a point behind him. Stiles can only imagine what Derek looks like. 

“The night, the first night, when we went looking for the body. I knew there could be something. I mean, I was afraid for my dad and I wanted…I never thought you would get lost. Or anything that happened afterwards.”

“Dude, I know that.” 

Scott makes it sound so simple, like he never would have thought Stiles would leave him on purpose. A week ago, Stiles would have believed the same of Scott, but after the night at school, he can’t be sure of what Scott is capable of – even if it technically wasn’t Scott who locked him in a classroom while the alpha was still loose. 

“Okay,” Stiles sighs. “Moving on.”

He and Scott tell Derek everything that’s been going on. He knows most of it, even about the scratch on Jackson’s neck, for which Stiles eyes him but says nothing. Stiles tells them what the police know about the deaths and the theories they’re spinning at the moment. Then it’s Derek’s turn, and he takes out a crumbled piece of paper from his pocket and holds it between his fingers. 

“The last time I spoke to my sister she was close to finding something,” Derek says, his eyes cast down. “She was looking for a guy named Harris.” 

“Our chemistry teacher?” Stiles asks. Sure the guy is creepy and seems to hate them, but him being the alpha doesn’t sound right.

Derek unfolds the piece of paper and holds it out. “We need to get this.” 

“What is it?” Stiles takes the paper. It’s a drawing, creased like it’s been crumpled up and smoothed down several times. Stiles has no idea what the drawing actually is, but Scott makes a noise when he sees it. 

“Allison’s necklace.” 

Derek doesn’t look surprised. “You need to get it, it could be helpful.” 

“How can a necklace be helpful?” Scott snaps. 

“I don’t know, Scott.” Derek stands up and snatches the paper out of his hands, refolding it before putting it back in his pocket. “But it’s all we have right now.” 

Stiles can tell Derek is keeping quiet about a few things. Jackson’s scratches, for one. And Kate Argent and that time at the Hale house that Stiles is nervous to ask about. Even the cure he promised Scott in exchange of help (even though Stiles helps for free). Stiles read about cures, it was one of the first things he researched, and something about Derek’s promise doesn’t add up. 

But they need to do this, and bringing up these questions now will only delay them. 

They set up schedules for keeping an eye on Harris and Stiles enjoys the feeling of accomplishment after no one’s claws come out and everybody acts civil for a little over a day, when he gets a call from Scott.

“The alpha went after Harris,” he says and Stiles sits up in bed, the room in shadows, the rest of the house silent. 

“What?”

“Derek stopped him, he called me.”

“Did Harris say something? What happened?” 

“No, but I think they’re calling your dad in.”

And then Stiles hears movement downstairs, the sound of jiggling keys and footsteps moving around. 

“Yeah, I think they did.” A door slams close somewhere in the house. “What about Derek? Did Harris see him?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Does he even know who Derek is?”

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Stiles doesn’t see his dad again before he has to go to school and his radio is mostly static for the entire night, so he has no news when he meets Scott in the hallways. Scott does, though.

“How the hell did he find out?” Stiles had considered the possibility of Jackson knowing something and he doesn’t put blackmail beyond the guy. But why the hell would he want to get turned?

“I don’t know!” Scott nearly shouts, striding down the halls as Stiles trips behind him. “I just…I need that cure. Now.”

“I know, man. We’ll fix it.” 

Scott can’t find the necklace, and his attempts at approaching Allison are cringe worthy, so they switch to plan B: steal the stupid thing before Jackson gets out of control and sells Scott out to the hunters. 

“Danny!” Stiles calls across the hallway at the end of the day. “Danny, my man. Wait up!”

It’s clear to Stiles that Danny does not like him and never has. He seems to have a soft spot for Scott, though, and Stiles is counting on his best friend status to make this work. 

“Stiles,” Danny says when Stiles finally catches up. “What do you want?”

“That’s cold, Danny. Maybe I just wanted to say hello.”

Danny gives him a look. “If this is another interrogation, Stiles….”

“No, no, this is strictly a business talk.” 

Danny sighs.

-

“What.” 

“You don’t have to do anything, just sit there and look pretty.”

“Stiles,” Derek starts, somehow taller than a second ago even though he’s standing on the other side of the room. 

“It’s not like I’m asking you to cut off a limb,” Stiles says and Derek purses his mouth shut. “Just sit there. I promise you’re underestimating your face. And your everything else. It’s going to work, you’ll see.”

Derek is quiet, Stiles can see his jaw working, his hands fisted in his jacket pockets.

“Danny’s not going to do something illegal just because I ask him to. He doesn’t even like me that much. Believe me, if I looked like you I wouldn’t be asking.”

Derek looks away.

“I know there’re things you’re not telling us. You owe me.”

“Fine.”

“What?”

“ _Fine_ , I’ll stay.”

He sits Derek down on a chair and hands him the first book he sees on his dresser so that Derek looks busy. When Danny arrives, Stiles sees his eyes linger on Derek for a couple of seconds too long and he knows this is going to work. 

He asks about tracing the text almost immediately, but there has not been enough Derek-exposure yet. 

“Is that blood on his shirt?” Danny asks a few minutes later, looking over his shoulder. Stiles checks and huh, when did he stop noticing blood on people’s clothes? And did Derek run out of clean shirts? He was perfectly fine the last time he saw him, unless something happened between then and now. He did chase the alpha when he was watching Harris, but Scott didn’t mention him getting hurt. 

“Stiles?” 

“Yeah, sorry. Uh, yeah, he gets horrible nosebleeds. Like, explosive. It’s pretty gross. Der- Miguel. Change your shirt, you’re freaking Danny out.” 

He’s thinking of letting Derek have every shirt he can fit into when he notices the way Danny is staring. No one is immune to Derek’s bare chest. Not even when he’s got his serial killer face on. 

Danny traces the text and Stiles tries to ignore the weird vibe in the room after he leaves. Derek is very quiet, almost sulking in one of Stiles’ baggiest shirts (that actually fits him perfectly). 

“It can’t be right,” Stiles says after a couple of minutes of staring at his computer screen. “Scott’s mom, I mean. It obviously wasn’t her.”

“We need to go to the hospital and find out.” 

“I…” Stiles thinks about the game and his dad sitting in the bleachers. Looking for him and not finding him. He thinks about being trapped in the school, the taste of fear sharp in his mouth, and knows he has to do this. “Okay.”

Derek is still quiet when they get into Stiles’ jeep and drive to the hospital. It’s not the silence that’s weird, but the atmosphere is frosty and tense – it makes Stiles jittery. When Scott sends a text with a picture of the necklace he managed to steal, Stiles welcomes the distraction with a sigh. But when he tries calling him, Scott doesn’t pick up. 

They park outside the hospital.

“I should get a hold of Scott before going in,” Stiles says, keeping his gaze set in front of him. Derek doesn’t even grunt in agreement. Stiles taps his fingers on the steering wheel, chewing his lower lip in order to keep himself from biting his nails.

Maybe he crossed some sort of line before.

“I’m sorry I objectified you,” he says, looking at Derek out of the corner of his eye. “You’re more than your body, hot as it is.” 

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek replies, shifting in his seat. He’s not taking his eyes off the hospital doors, his entire body leaning away from Stiles. 

“No, it has to be said,” Stiles goes on, turning to face him. “There’s more to you than incredibly defined abs.” 

Derek’s head snaps towards him, eyes flashing. Stiles jumps backwards. 

“You can’t scare me quiet,” Stiles says, voice not completely steady. “And I’m not scared of you, anyway.”

“You should be.” It’s so quiet Stiles almost misses it. Derek is looking at him, his eyes seem to shine even in their normal state. Stiles doesn’t know what to say, so he changes the subject. 

“About Jackson,” he begins and Derek looks away and back towards the hospital, his entire posture changing back to the tense wall of muscle from before. “You know what happened to him don’t you.”

Derek doesn’t answer. 

“You gave him those scratches.”

“It was an accident.” 

“He can’t turn from that, can he?” 

“It wasn’t deep enough.”

Stiles lets out a breath. 

“Are you sure about the cure?” He asks. “Because I read different things about it.”

It takes a moment before Derek turns back to Stiles and answers. “I never met anyone who was bitten before. Or anyone who didn’t want to be what they were.”

“So if Scott kills the alpha…” Stiles prompts, letting Derek’s last comment slide. 

“He will either be cured or take the alpha’s place.”

Stiles cringes. “We don’t want that.”

“No, we don’t.”

After calling Scott about ten times, he finally picks up his phone. Stiles passes him to Derek, who questions him about the necklace. But it’s, apparently, a perfectly normal necklace. No secret switches or hidden buttons or anything. Derek gives the phone back with a frustrated huff, and Stiles fumbles with it before pressing it to his ear. 

“The game’s about to start,” Scott says. “Where are you?”

“We’re just checking something out. If you see my dad just…tell him I’m gonna be a little late, okay? I’ll be there.” 

“You’re not going to make it,” Derek tells him when he disconnects the call, his voice soft. Stiles just can’t figure him out. “And you didn’t tell him about his mom either.”

“I know. I just need to find out the truth.” He unlocks his door. “You have your phone, right?”

Derek nods. 

-

Scott’s mom is nowhere to be found, she’s probably already at the game. Derek tells him to look for his uncle’s room and find a nurse called Jennifer. 

“That’s my uncle’s nurse,” he says. 

“She’s not here,” Stiles tells him after he sticks his head into the room to find it empty. 

“That’s impossible.”

“I’m telling you, no one’s here.” 

Stiles is considering going to the nurse station, find someone else and ask…he doesn’t know what, when he focuses back on the conversation and takes on Derek’s tone. 

“Stiles, you have to get out of there!” Derek is saying. “It’s him, he’s the alpha!” 

“What….”

“Stiles,” someone says behind him and Stiles whirls around to find Peter Hale standing there, half of his face completely burnt but awake and talking and impossible. “You’ve grown.”

It hits Stiles that he’s dead. He’s going to die and his dad is waiting for him at his first game and the alpha is in front of him, the last person Derek has to care about is about to kill him. 

“You were what, ten the last time I saw you?” Peter asks, his tone pleasant. Stiles turns and the missing nurse is there, blocking his way. 

“Thirteen, actually,” he replies, his heart about to burst from his chest. The last time he saw Peter was on one of his dad’s barbeques, surrounded by his family, his kids clinging to him. 

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you.” 

Stiles scoffs. “Right, call your bodyguard off and let me go, then.” 

Peter smiles, only half of his face actually moving. “Not yet.” His eyes shift over Stiles’ shoulder and the smile sharpens. “Ah.” 

There’s a thump behind him and Stiles looks to find Derek standing over the nurse, now unconscious on the floor. 

“Peter,” Derek says, eyes glowing, fangs out. He spares Stiles a quick look, up and down, and then growls. “Stiles, get out of the way.” 

Stiles doesn’t need to be told twice. He ducks and scrambles closer to the wall. 

When Derek runs at his uncle, Stiles can see how much he was holding back when he fought with Scott. But even if he’s being as vicious as he can, he’s still not a match for Peter, who is laughing as he throws Derek around, showering him with broken glass and leaving him a bloody mess on the floor. 

Stiles is frozen in his spot, looking as Derek crawls away from him while Peter looms over him. He walks behind Derek as he drags himself across the halls, saying things Stiles can’t hear. 

For a second, maybe even less, Stiles wants to run. Memories of a monster chasing him through dark hallways fill his mind, and he turns towards the exit. He stumbles onto the nurse, her face bloody, and thinks of Derek, fighting the only member of his family left alive. 

Stiles gets up on shaky legs and looks around him for a weapon.

When he finds Peter, he’s standing just outside one of the rooms, looking in. 

“Derek, you have to give me a chance to explain,” he’s saying and Stiles adjusts his grip on the fire extinguisher’s handle, lifts it up and swings, cutting Peter off mid-sentence.

He gets him on the side of the head with a sickening crunch. Peter crashes against the doorway and slumps to the floor. Stiles is panting, one of his arms stings. Derek is looking at him from the floor inside the room, covered in blood, his eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks as Peter stirs.

“Godammit, kid,” he says, his voice wet. 

“Get out of here, Stiles,” Derek grunts. He tries to get up and hunches over, spitting blood on the tiled floor. 

Stiles hurries inside the room before Peter can reach out and stop him, dragging the fire extinguisher with him. He definitely pulled something in his arm – he can barely keep his hold as he tries to help Derek up with his other arm, ignoring his protests. 

“Come on, I’m not leaving, get up,” Stiles is muttering, keeping his eyes on Peter as he slowly comes back to his feet. There’s a long gash oozing blood on the side of his face that was completely burned not ten minutes ago. Stiles can see it stitching itself together. 

“I just fixed that,” Peter growls, his mouth dark red.

“Well, you should pay more attention to your surroundings,” Stiles replies through gritted teeth. His grip on the handle is slipping, and Derek can barely keep standing on his own. Stiles can feel the growl going through him as he presses their sides together. 

Peter smirks. “What are you planning on doing now?” 

“Well,” Stiles says. “I plan on getting us the hell out of here. Alive.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to kill you,” Peter laughs. 

“Yeah? Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing.” 

“As I was saying before you interrupted, I want to explain.”

“You killed Laura,” Derek breathes, back muscles rippling under Stiles’ hand. 

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Peter replies. “It was the full moon, I wasn’t myself.” 

“Now that’s an excuse,” Stiles says. His fingers are going numb. 

“What do you know, kid?” Peter snaps. “Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re burning from inside out, to watch your entire family go up in flames before you, to be alive enough to still feel the pain years later and not being able to do anything about it? I lay on that bed until I was half out of my mind and yes, I was not myself when I finally managed to get up.” He looks at Derek. “I didn’t mean to hurt your sister.”

“Did you mean to beat the crap out of him, then?” 

“Stiles,” Derek warns as Peter clicks his tongue.

“You need to learn to stay quiet,” he says, shaking his head. “He was going to rip me apart, I was just defending myself.”

“You’re killing people.”

“I’m avenging my family. Those _people_ killed my kids, my wife, my sisters. They left my nephew an orphan. And all because he was naïve enough to trust only one of them.”

Derek lets out a growl and Stiles jumps, finally dropping the fire extinguisher with a loud clang. 

“Don’t give me that,” Peter laughs. “You know what you did.”

Derek is healing, Stiles can see the little cuts on his face closing up before his eyes. And yet he’s breathing hard, still slumped against Stiles like he hasn’t any strength left. 

“This is your chance to get revenge,” Peter says. “We’re almost done. Deep down you know they deserve it. You know you want to rip her apart for what she did.” 

_Kate Argent_ , Stiles thinks. And then, _he was dating Kate Argent_. 

Back before the fire, back when Derek used to slip into his bedroom to play videogames. He was dating someone and keeping his family in the dark. He was dating an Argent. And then she set his house on fire. 

“You tried to get Scott to kill us,” Stiles says when he finds his voice again, though it’s gone a little hoarse.

“The fastest way to cut all ties, in my opinion.” The smile Peter throws them is nothing short of scary. Stiles almost wants to draw closer to Derek, but then Derek stands straight and steps forward.

“What do you want?” He asks Peter and Stiles gapes. 

“Hey!” 

“It’s too late to get what I want, but I’ll settle with that woman’s head in my hands.” 

“If I help you, you’ll leave Scott alone,” Derek says. “I’ll be your pack.”

“Are you freaking serious? Derek!” Stiles grabs at Derek’s arm, but he yanks it away. 

“There’s safety in numbers,” Peter replies, looking at Stiles with the same unnerving smile as before. “I’ll let Scott decide what he wants to do.” 

“Can’t you take a hint? Scott’s not going to help you,” Stiles snaps. 

“I could show you, too. Perhaps that would shut you up.” Peter lifts a hand, his claws out. 

“We’ll find Scott,” Derek says, stepping between them. Stiles glares at his back. 

“No, we won’t!”

“He’s not going to hurt him,” Derek says, his eyes on his uncle. 

“Fine,” Peter sighs as his claws retract. “I won’t hurt him.”

His tone does nothing to calm Stiles’ nerves. 

-

Stiles feels a little hollow when they are approaching the school and he sees the remnants of an obvious lacrosse victory celebration all over the yard. 

The school is deserted by now, but somehow Peter knows that Scott is still inside. 

“It’s an alpha thing,” Peter says with a grin. 

“It’s a creepy thing, that’s what it is,” Stiles mutters, knowing full well Peter can hear him. Derek glowers at him – he’s walking firmly between his uncle and Stiles, like he doesn’t trust either of them not to start something.

“Your taste in human company is always so quaint, Derek,” Peter musses and Derek’s shoulders hunch. Stiles bites his tongue, sensing this is one of those times when keeping quiet is the best course of action. 

They find Scott in the locker room, sitting on one of the benches like a little lost kid. 

“Stiles!” He shouts when he sees him, jumping to his feet. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Um.” Stiles is saved from having to explain when Scott’s eyes dart to the door and widen to twice their size. 

“What? But you…” 

“Scott,” Peter greets. “This was long overdue.” 

Scott grabs Stiles’ arm and yanks so that he stumbles behind him with a yelp. “You’re the alpha.” He says.

“Aren’t you a bright one.” 

“And you.” Scott turns to Derek, who’s standing to the side, face blank. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’ve come to explain myself.” Peter gestures, opening his arms on either side of him.

“You’re a murderer!” Scott shouts, his grip on Stiles arm tightening, his claws coming out. 

“Uh, Scott. Careful, buddy.” Stiles says, trying to free himself.

No one pays any attention to him.

“That’s such an ugly word, though.” 

“It’s what you are,” Scott growls as Stiles tries prying his fingers off of him. It’s the same arm he hurt when whirling around the fire extinguisher earlier and the pressure is making sharp waves of pain shoot up to his shoulder.

“Mm,” Peter hums. “Maybe you could try and see things from my perspective.”

And then he’s on them and Scott doesn’t even have time to open his mouth around a real growl when Peter is slamming into him and digging his claws deep into the back of Scott’s neck. 

His grip tightens with a jerk that makes Stiles cry out as they both fall to the floor. It lasts a second and then Scott lets go in order to grab his injured neck, writhing and groaning. 

“Scott,” Stiles gasps, kneeling over him when he feels a hand on his shoulder and then he’s on his feet and Peter is gone and Derek is dragging him further away. “What did he do?”

“It’s fine,” Derek tells him, roughly checking Stiles’ injured arm. Stiles cringes and steps back, holding his arm against his side. 

“You said he wouldn’t freaking hurt him!” He says, listening to Scott’s moans behind him. 

“He didn’t.” Derek crosses his arms, his fists closed, his knuckles white. “He’s sharing memories.”

Stiles gapes. “What the hell kind of super power is that?” He snaps. “And anyway, hasn’t he heard of talking over a cup of coffee or something?”

Derek doesn’t answer, not even his eyebrows (that say more than words sometimes) move an inch. 

Stiles looks over his shoulder at Scott. “Is that what you did to Jackson?”

When he turns again, Derek looks surprised. 

“That was an accident.”

“Yeah, but can you do the memory transfer thing or is it reserved only for alphas?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Stiles sighs, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “What _do_ you know?” 

It’s a rhetorical question, so when Derek says “not much” in a quiet, gruff voice, Stiles startles. 

The pain in his arm has dulled to a constant throb. Derek keeps stealing glances at it, but Stiles refuses to let that distract him. 

“Are you really going to help him?” 

“He’s my uncle,” Derek says. 

“He’s insane.” Stiles huffs. “And that’s not what I asked.”

A little while later, Scott finally stirs awake. “Why are you still here?” He asks, staring right at Derek, his voice rough. “You chose your side.”

Stiles doesn’t argue, he can’t, and Derek leaves quietly. 

-

His dad is waiting for him when he gets home, but this time Stiles has a story prepared about his jeep breaking down and not getting any signal on his phone. 

When his dad asks about his arm, Stiles falters for long enough that he can actually see the disappointment slowly fill his father’s eyes. 

“Your friend Derek attacked one of your teachers,” he says. 

“He’s not my friend,” Stiles replies instantly. And then, “what?”

“Your chemistry teacher. Mr. Harris. He says Derek attacked him in his classroom. Do you happen to know where he was last night?”

Stiles wants to argue that Derek was not the one attacking Mr. Harris. He wants to tell his dad everything because his other options are either saying he doesn’t know anything and letting him suspect Derek all over again, or saying Derek was with him, which will only convince his dad further that Stiles is falling down the less-than-legal path of life. 

But knowledge is dangerous when there are werewolves involved, and the less his dad knows, the better.

So Stiles settles with, “I think I saw his car somewhere in town.”

“Really?” His dad says, looking down at the pile of files on the table in front of him. “Because I’m pretty sure you were sleeping in your room at the time.”

-

Jackson is set on turning. He doesn’t care that the hunters are already after him because they think he’s the second beta – that he’s being stalked by hunters even before getting the bite. 

Stiles thinks about what Derek said and wonders if he’d want Jackson in his pack. Someone who actually meant to get bitten and wanted it so badly he didn’t care who he hurt to get it. 

On top of that, Scott is sure Allison is starting to suspect something. They don’t know how much she knows because of her parents or her aunt, but since she still hasn’t pointed at Scott with her crossbow, they’re pretty certain they’re still somewhat safe with her. 

A couple of days later, with no news of Derek or Peter (or where any of them are staying – not at the house and not together, Stiles hopes) Scott calls him in a panic. 

“Wait, wait, wait.” Stiles has to make sure he heard right. “Did you just say your mom just went out on a date with Peter Hale?” 

“Yes!” Scott yells through the phone. “I need your help!”

Afterwards, Stiles calls Derek. He leaves a message after a generic voice recording tells him to. “Hey, just letting you know I just lost a headlight on my car because your uncle tried to go on a date with Scott’s mom. I really hope you’re not involved in _that_ half assed plan, because it was just embarrassing for everyone present. You should call back. Or text that you’re alive or something. Okay. Bye.”

He gets everything out almost in a breath and then hangs up before he can be tempted into deleting the message. 

Ten minutes later he gets a text. 

_I’m outside_.

Stiles rolls out of bed (nearly bashing his nose against the floor) and hurries to the window. He looks out into the woods, squinting at the darkness. 

_i dont see u_

He sees the dim light from Derek’s phone first, and then Derek, stepping out of the shadows and onto Stiles back yard.

 _that wasnt creepy at all_ , he writes and sees Derek read it below him and then glare up at his window. 

“You’re lucky my dad is not here, he has eyes everywhere,” Stiles tells him when he goes out to meet him. 

“I had nothing to do with what Peter did,” is Derek’s idea of an answer. Stiles falters and stops a few steps away from him. 

“Well, the idea was a bit more direct than your usual style.” 

Derek looks worn, though his scowl is in place, as always. 

“Doesn’t it hurt your face to look like that all the time?”

“How’s your arm?” Derek asks, which again, is not an answer to Stiles’ completely legitimate question.

“All better,” Stiles says anyway, waving his arm around. “So, what’s wrong now? Besides everything, I mean. Tell me there’s no more bad news.”

“I can get rid of Jackson.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can get rid of Jackson,” Derek repeats, slower, like that is going to make his words any less terrifying. 

“What are you talking about? _How_?” 

“I can talk to him.”

Stiles stares for a moment. He feels like Derek’s words need to sink in. 

“Let me guess, you’re gonna charm the socks off him and convince him to back off?” Stiles lets something resembling a laugh out. “Don’t get me wrong, you worked wonders on Danny but you’re not much of a talker. Never were.” 

“You would know,” Derek says and Stiles laughs, for real this time. “And I have other ways to convince him.” 

“Um, I’m not sure, man. I think we better not risk him crying wolf to the Argents.” 

“He could use a reality check,” Derek insists and Stiles realizes that Derek is actually _asking permission_ , and he can’t help the grin that takes over his face. 

He’s about to comment on it when Derek’s posture stiffens and he grumbles out, “Shut up.” 

Stiles sighs, scratching at his neck. Ten seconds of camaraderie, new record. “We’re back to that, aren’t we?” 

Derek gestures for him to cut it out and Stiles has only time to feel his heart starting to speed up when a woman speaks up from behind Derek. 

“The Sherriff’s son? Really?”

Derek whirls around towards the voice. 

“Always knew you got off on the secret and forbidden,” the voice goes on and Stiles knows it. Knows the condescending tone, the mean laugh lying just below every word. 

He can’t see Derek’s face, but Stiles can tell he’s shifted, still facing the woods at the edge of the yard. 

Then Derek stumbles backwards, like he just received an invisible blow and there is blood on his shoulder and he’s growling and bullets are flying, completely silent except when they wheeze past him and hit the trees around them. 

Stiles doesn’t have time to duck or run or yell when he finds the earth rushing to his face. He hits the grass but doesn’t feel it. He hears someone calling out his name around a groan and he thanks his luck his dad isn’t home and then everything goes black.

-

He’s face down on the ground when he comes to. His head feels like it’s splitting in two. He has a bump the size of an egg just behind his ear. It’s still dark. Derek is gone.

\- 

Even as his vision refuses to clear (he’s sort of seeing double) Stiles drags himself through the yard in all fours, looking for any forgotten shells that could have been left behind. His dad barely even goes outside since he stopped having time to throw barbeques, but Stiles isn’t taking any chances. The pain in his head makes his hands tremble as he rakes his fingers through grass and dirt in vain. He doesn’t find anything, and after a few endless minutes, he allows himself to sit against a tree and breathe. 

That done, he stumbles back into the house. 

“Goddammit, Scott,” he curses and throws his phone onto his bed. “I’m gonna glue your stupid phone to your forehead, I swear.”

He’s back in his room, sitting at his desk because his legs don’t feel completely steady. He can taste blood when he brings his fingers to his mouth to gnaw on what’s left of his nails, but he doesn’t care. He’s trying to think, but every thought that comes to mind flutters away a moment later, chased away by the pain in his head. 

He wants to call Derek, but there’s something telling him it’s not a good idea. Something, something he should be remembering is bumping around in his head, but for the life of him he can’t grasp it. 

He’s slumping in his chair, blankly staring at his phone in hopes that Scott will call him back, when it hits him. 

Derek’s phone. GPS. He can track him. 

He nearly falls to the floor as he turns his chair towards his computer, and he needs to take a moment for the sudden dizziness to subside. He’ll worry about the possible concussion later.

Tracking the phone is easy once he finds the number on his own phone, but when the results come up, Stiles stares at his computer screen for a couple of seconds, sure he’s seeing wrong. 

The little red dot is right over the Hale house. 

Would the hunters really take Derek to such an obvious place? Maybe they want to be followed. Maybe that’s why they left Stiles behind: to attract the other wolves to them. 

Stiles stares at the screen.

Ten minutes later he’s in his jeep and on his way to the woods. He can’t make Scott walk into a trap, but he can’t leave Derek alone either, so he drives by himself, ignoring every instinct in his body warning him against it.

It takes him longer than usual to walk the last half mile to the house after he hides his car. Every stumble he takes sends a jolt up to the bump on his head that leaves him gasping, clinging to trees to keep standing. It’s neither a graceful nor quiet walk. 

Once at the edge of the woods overlooking the Hale house, Stiles pauses. No one is guarding the door, and there’re no cars or signs that anyone has been around lately. It takes him a few minutes to gather the courage to dash (as best as he can) across the clearing to the porch. No one shoots him, there are no shouts or footsteps behind him. 

The night is extremely quiet. The house is empty.

-

With little to no sleep, Stiles goes to school. 

He feels guilty and worried and so tired he almost doesn’t dare to drive (he does anyway) but Scott called him about needing help keeping an eye on Allison, because Peter is after her and at least this is something Stiles can help with. 

When Stiles tells him about Derek, Scott brushes it off before he seems to remember that Stiles sort of _cares_ about Derek, and then he gives an apologetic shrug.

“I’m sorry, but let’s deal with this first. Derek can take care of himself.”

 _So can Allison_ , Stiles thinks even though he knows no one they know is a match for Peter. But Scott wasn’t there when Kate Argent was shooting Derek down, doesn’t have that scene on replay in his brain. Scott doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

“Look, the formal is tomorrow night. I can’t take her, I can’t even _go_ , I just need a way to keep her safe and then we’ll look for Derek.”

“He could be dead by tomorrow night,” Stiles hisses, leaning in, aware that they are surrounded by their teammates and Jackson has a tendency to spy on them. 

“And what do you think Peter would do to Allison?” Scott snaps back, his stage whisper slightly louder than what he probably intended.

Stiles grits his teeth. 

“Look, I promise we’ll look for him. After the formal. I promise. I still need him to find the cure.” 

“Right,” Stiles says, low. “And what am I supposed to do until then? Sit on my ass and wait it out? They—” Stiles chokes a little, realizing how true his words are as he’s saying them. “They have no reason to keep him alive.”

Kate had been ready to kill him that day at the Hale house. Had been ready to kill them both, not bothering to check if Stiles was also a wolf or not. Stiles isn’t even sure Derek is alive right now, but he’s not going to give him up while there’s a chance he is. Somehow his phone got to the house. Stiles is choosing to believe Derek got there with it. Breathing.

But what little he can do alone Stiles already did, and now he needs Scott and his super senses to help look for Derek. 

They corner Jackson as he’s leaving the showers. 

“Now what?” Stiles asks after they’ve persuaded Jackson into taking Allison to the dance. “Are you gonna trust that asshole with her?”

“No, I’ll be there.” 

“And afterwards….”

“We’ll find Derek.” 

Stiles is prepared to make himself sick with worry and nerves until the dance is over – holed up in his room and staring at his computer screen and the little red dot that is (has to be) Derek and hoping it moves once and for all, at least a few feet. But then Allison calls him. 

“Um…this isn’t Scott,” he says, a little confused. He likes Allison, but they haven’t really talked more than a couple of words in a row. Even the time he drove her home, a million years ago, he was too distracted to hold a conversation. 

Now she laughs in his ear like an old friend. 

“I know,” she says. “I’m calling to ask for a favour.”

“Okay.” Stiles sits up in bed. 

“So, I’m going to the formal with Jackson. As friends!” She hurries to add, as if she’s afraid he’ll go to Scott with the gossip, as if it wasn’t Scott’s idea in the first place. “And you know he and Lydia broke up.”

“Um.” Stiles did not know that, and he feels a little spark of hope in his stomach before he remembers Lydia doesn’t even like him and besides, this is not the time to think about dating his life-long crush. “Good for her.”

“Well, you know her, she’s pretending everything is fine but I know she doesn’t have a date for the dance so….”

Allison trails off and Stiles waits it out for a few seconds before he realizes. 

“What? No. I mean, she wouldn’t want to and I’m not even going I’m…I have to study,” he blurts out while his inner ten- year-old-self throws a tantrum. 

“What are you studying for? We just finished our exams last week.” 

“It’s a, uh, personal thing. Project.” Stiles grimaces. That couldn’t have come out creepier if he tried.

“Right,” Allison says, dubious. “But it’s Lydia. And she’s sad. And you’re nice.”

Stiles scoffs. “I’m nice?” 

“Yes.”

 _Tell that to Derek_ , he thinks as he agrees to pretend his life isn’t crazy for one night.

So they go to the formal, and Stiles hates himself for it. He actually feels so guilty, he forgets to be nervous when he picks Lydia up at her house, or when they have nothing to talk about on the ride to school so he just turns up the music or when Jackson acts like a douche and Stiles tells Lydia she’s beautiful and she grabs his arm to walk into the school. 

He feels warm and stiff in the tie his dad insisted on – he had looked so happy and proud Stiles hadn’t been able to tell him no.

He keeps checking his phone every few minutes, waiting for news from Scott or maybe, hopefully, from Derek. Lydia looks bored and angry and can’t stop looking at Jackson, and Stiles is holding his hands clenched in his lap, he almost has no more nails to bite. He wishes he felt even the slightest desire to ask Lydia to dance, because she looks like she could use a distraction. But every time he considers it, Derek comes to mind, and he slumps further into his seat. 

“He’s not worth it,” he says eventually, because Lydia is looking increasingly glassy-eyed and Stiles can’t let her cry. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lydia replies, pushing her hair over her shoulder and averting her eyes.

“Don’t you get tired of playing dumb?” Stiles asks. 

“Can we not talk? I was having a pretty okay time before.” 

Stiles feels that electric current that scares him, then. His entire body sizes up and he leans in over the table, his voice wavering as he speaks. 

“Lydia, I’ve had a crush on you since the third grade. And I know, that somewhere inside that cold, _lifeless_ exterior, there is an actual human soul.” Lydia’s eyes are wide and Stiles takes a second to take a breath and calm the hell down. “I know that once you’re done pretending to be a nitwit for a guy, you’ll eventually go off and write some insane mathematical theorem that wins you the Nobel Prize.”

He sits back down and runs a hand down his face. 

“Sorry,” he says after a short, awkward silence. “I’m just really tired.”

“You’ll do something great, too.” Lydia’s voice is soft and Stiles looks at her through his fingers. She’s smirking down at the table, perfectly pulled together again. “You’re smart. Not as smart as me, of course, but you’ll…go places. Once you figure out how to dress yourself. And do something about your hair.”

“That’s the nicest backhanded compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Stiles tells her, feeling a little high. 

“And there’s no Nobel Prize for mathematics,” she adds, smoothing down her dress. “I’ll be winning a Fields Medal, thank you very much.” 

An hour later Stiles is shouting himself hoarse, telling Lydia to run. And then he’s watching as Peter charges at her, sinking his teeth into her side and he’s listening to her scream until she passes out and he’s running and calling out to her but he’s too late.

He crashes onto his knees in front of Lydia, Peter on her other side, and tries to check if she’s breathing, but Peter won’t let him come too close. 

“Please don’t kill her,” Stiles begs him. He left her alone, let her go outside because he was too distracted to realize Peter would not only be targeting Allison, of course not. 

“I won’t,” Peter says, his mouth stained with blood. “Just tell me how to find Derek.”

Stiles jerks, his hands closing into fists, hovering over Lydia’s body. “I don’t know.”

He swallows. 

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I can tell you’re lying, Stiles.” Peter’s fangs catch the lights on the lacrosse field, shining red and deadly. He strokes Lydia’s face with his claws. “Tell me the truth or I _will_ rip her apart.”

His fingers move to her hair, matted in blood and she’s so still and this is all Stiles’ fault. 

“Look, I don’t know,” he chokes out. “I mean, I thought I did but—”

“ _Tell me_!” Peter’s shout echoes all around them, so loud it makes Stiles’ ears ring and he hunches over on himself but still trying to cover Lydia, hoping Scott, wherever he is, hears it. 

Except that Jackson is a dick and he sold Scott over to the hunters, right. How did so many things go wrong in such a short time?

“I tracked his phone but he wasn’t there,” he says and Peter’s eyes flash.

“ _Where_?”

Stiles doesn’t want to tell him, he’s scrambling around for a lie when he looks down at Lydia, at Peter’s claws over her pale cheek, and he knows he has to.

“The house.” His voice is rough and he clears his throat, closes his eyes for a second. “Your house.”

Peter frowns (face completely human and slick with Lydia’s blood) like it doesn’t make any sense before his expression smoothes down in realization.

“Of course.” He looks at Stiles. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, I need to take her somewhere safe.” Peter growls and Stiles gulps, steeling himself. “Let me call someone. Let me tell them where to find her. You have to.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything, kid.”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her,” Stiles argues, something hot and angry pushing its way up his spine. 

“I say a lot of things.” 

Peter reaches out and clamps his hand around Stiles’ arm, grip tight enough to cut off his circulation. But he resists when Peter starts to pull him up. 

“ _No_ ,” he gasps. “I—Just kill me, I don’t even care anymore.”

He’s scared to realize he absolutely means it. 

Peter grins, something not quite right in his eyes, and drags him to his feet. 

“Call your friend,” he says, his face so close to Stiles’ that he can smell Lydia’s blood on Peter’s breath. “Tell him where she is. That’s all you get.”

Stiles looks down at Lydia. She looks dead already, except he can see a few strands of hair moving on her face, soft puffs blowing them in and out.

“Don’t feel bad. If she lives she’ll be a werewolf, she’ll be—”

“I don’t need you to reassure me,” Stiles cuts him off, digging into his pocket for his phone. 

Peter is quiet while Stiles makes the call, but Stiles can feel his eyes on him and it makes his neck prickle. Jackson sounds confused and pissed off when he answers the phone and Stiles has no patience when he tells him where to go and what to do and then he hangs up to frantic questions and lets Peter haul him away.

He has to keep himself from looking back at Lydia while they start for his car, but he’s not sure he’d be able to walk away if he has to see her lying there alone, so he grits his teeth and leaves her for Jackson to find. 

-

“I’m not doing that,” he tells Peter later, when they’re driving in his jeep towards the Hale house. “He never answers his phone anyway,” Stiles argues. 

“As much as it pains me to admit it, I can’t do this alone.” 

“He won’t help you. Neither of them will.” 

“Oh, they’ll help me.” Peter smirks, his eyes set in front of him. “Because it’ll save Allison. And you.”

“Derek won’t. And he’s stronger than Scott.”

Peter looks at him, then, something like pity and amusement in his expression. Stiles sneers at him. 

“Give me your phone,” Peter orders. 

“You’ll only be setting yourself up for rejection, I’m telling you.”

“I will drive this tin can into a tree.” Stiles freezes in his seat. “And guess who’s going to walk out of it without a single scratch.”

As he hands Peter his phone, Stiles wonders where his willingness to die back at the lacrosse field went. He still doesn’t want Scott to walk into a trap, but he knows that now that Peter is involved, Derek has an actual chance of making it out of this in one piece.

“You’ll get something in return, for helping me,” Peter tells him a while later, after calling Scott half a dozen times and getting no answer. Stiles doesn’t bother to tell him Scott is most likely hidden away somewhere because Jackson sold him out. If the hunters didn’t catch him, but Stiles is refusing to believe that. He doesn’t have more room in his head to worry about anyone else. 

“What can you possibly give me,” he mutters, eyes on the road. 

“I could bite you.” 

Stiles nearly veers out of the road from the shock. He doesn’t dare to look at Peter after he rights the car, but somehow knows the man is smiling. 

“Do you want it?” He asks. “It could kill you, but if it doesn’t, you’ll be as powerful as Scott or even Derek.”

The woods fly by on either side of them and Stiles can feel blood rushing in his ears, his vision tunnelling in panic. He thinks he sees a flash of teeth out of the corner of his eyes, but he keeps completely still.

“When I took Scott I needed a pack, but it could have easily been you. You’d be equals. Maybe even more.” 

Peter’s breath hits the side of Stiles’ face and a single claw makes its way up his arm and Stiles jerks, jutting an elbow out. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” he manages to rasp out. “I’m not interested.” 

“I can tell when you’re lying, kid. Remember that.”

Stiles grits his teeth, adjusting his grip on the wheel that’s suddenly damp with sweat. He thought about the possibility – the bite does sound enticing when you take out the part about the hunters, or the fact that once a month you lose control of yourself enough to want to hurt the people more important to you. He’s also not a fan of the fangs and the claws, no matter that Derek told him they didn’t hurt. The whole _shifting_ part of it doesn’t look fun. 

Sure it would be nice not to feel like every morning could be his last. He’s aware that some of the things Derek and Scott and even Peter have gone through would kill Stiles, no doubt about it. It would be nice to be stronger and faster and able to protect his father with his strength alone. If Stiles was stronger Lydia wouldn’t be hurt and Derek wouldn’t be missing and he wouldn’t be so scared all the damn time.

But he doesn’t want the bite. He doesn’t want to be anything less than human - he doesn’t want anything to cloud his judgement. 

He doesn’t want that little wild part of him he can sometimes feel lurking just under the surface to be in control.

Stiles is pulled out of his thoughts by his phone, the peppy song that is his ringtone shrill in the quiet of his car. 

“ _Douche_ ,” Peter says, amusement in his tone as he reads the cell’s screen. “You’re not the only one in the group with an unfortunate name, then.”

“It’s Jackson.” Stiles makes a grab for the phone but Peter holds it out of his reach. “He’s the guy I called earlier. He’s with my friend, I want to know how she is.”

Peter looks at him for a couple of seconds, the phone going on and on. “Fine,” he says. “I’m not completely heartless.”

Stiles doesn’t bother with an answer, though he has a few choice ones. 

“Jackson,” he says into the receiver. “How’s Lydia?”

“Where the hell are you?” Jackson sounds livid, his voice tight and hushed.

“None of your business. I asked how Lydia is.” 

“There’s a bunch of guys with _guns_ asking about your friends, Stiles.” 

Peter snorts out a laugh – Stiles knows he can hear both ends of the conversation perfectly. 

“Did you just call me and say my name in front of them? Because that’s pretty stupid, even for you.” 

“As if they don’t know you and your boyfriends are behind everything that’s been going on lately,” Jackson snaps. “And they told me to call you. They know who you are.”

“Tell them where we’re going,” Peter says. 

“ _No_ , are you insane?” 

“Having all the Argents in the same place will save me a lot of time,” Peter goes on, one claw pushed against Stiles’ leg, pressing enough to tear a little hole on his jeans. Stiles can feel the tip of it against his skin. “Tell him.” 

Stiles does and then drops his phone on the jeep’s floor, his fingers trembling. 

Peter makes him take the long road to the house, the one that leaves them behind it instead of facing the porch, and then pulls him outside and shoves him until he’s looking somewhere to the left of the ruins and into the woods. 

He makes Stiles walk ahead of him, giving directions and laughing every time Stiles loses his footing. 

It reminds him too much of that night, carrying all the camping supplies, Derek mocking him and walking through the wild woods like he was in his backyard. 

“Not everyone can see in the dark, you know,” Stiles says after stumbling over a rock and hearing a scoff behind him.

“You could, if you wanted to.”

“I rather smash my face into a tree, thanks.” He waits for Peter to call him out on the lie, but he’s quiet. Stiles can’t even hear his footsteps. He feels a chill rush up his spine. “Are you still there or can I run away already?”

“Be quiet,” Peter growls and Stiles clamps his mouth shut and listens. 

The first hunter that appears in front of them is zipping up his jeans, his gun strapped to his back, and he doesn’t even manage to look up before Peter is on him. 

By the time they find the entrance to the tunnel, Peter has left a trail of unconscious hunters on their wake.

“What’s in there?” Stiles asks, looking at the rusted gate, the weeds covering most of it. There’s a light, weak and flickering somewhere in the darkness ahead. 

“My nephew,” Peter replies and pushes Stiles forward. 

They haven’t walked two steps when there’s a sudden howl echoing on the stone walls and making Stiles cower. The sound is long and _loud_ – Stiles can hear a soft ringing in his ears when it stops. And then Peter is stalking ahead with a growl of his own, eyes flashing as he pushes past Stiles. He follows, a frantic mantra of _oh shit, oh shit_ in his head. 

He loses Peter pretty quickly, but it’s not like there’s anywhere to go but forward, so it’s not long before Stiles sees a light stronger than the yellow light bulbs adorning the tunnel walls. He reaches a door and then he’s ducking to avoid getting hit in the face by a flying hunter. 

The guy doesn’t make a sound when he connects with the opposite wall (except for the crunch his nose makes against the bricks) and falls like a sack of flour on the cold floor. Stiles is panting, hanging onto the doorframe and incredibly glad the guy is on his stomach so Stiles doesn’t have to see what remains of his face. 

Then he turns and, finally, there is Derek. 

It takes a moment for the picture in front of him to sink in. Derek, shirtless as he usually seems to be when in trouble, chained to a metal grate and covered in sweat. Wires coming out from a machine stuck to his side. He’s barely awake, but his eyes are trained on Stiles.

“Now this is excessive,” Peter says and Stiles snaps into action. He steps into the room and heads for Derek. 

“Don’t,” Derek grumbles, his breaths coming out hard and who knows what that hunter was doing to him before they got here. Stiles ignores him and starts looking for something to climb on, pointedly not looking at the tools on the table next to him. “Why is he here?” Derek asks once Stiles has dragged a chair over and is busy trying to figure out the lock on the cuffs. He glances at Derek once he’s at eye-level and realizes he’s talking to his uncle. 

“Incentive,” Peter replies behind Stiles back. Before Stiles can turn, there’s a hand on his neck, fingers curving over his throat and yanking back. He makes a strangled noise as his feet slip off the chair and he falls backwards and against Peter’s chest. 

“Hey!” he shouts, trying to break free, but Peter’s hold only tightens. 

“I already agreed to help you,” Derek says, still a little breathless.

“Well, forgive me if I don’t completely trust where your loyalties lie. Can you really blame me?”

Derek lifts his head, his face pale. “I have enough reasons to want her gone.”

“The word is _dead_ , Derek. We want her dead. Her and the rest of her family of murderers.” 

“Allison didn’t do anything,” Stiles blurts out and feels Peter’s claws cutting into his neck. 

“Neither did the people her auntie killed.” Stiles winces when he feels a sharp prickle on his neck. Derek’s arms bulge, wrists straining against the cuffs even though his expression doesn’t waver. 

“I already told you I’d help you,” he repeats and Peter’s huff of breath hits to back of Stiles’ head, making him hold back a shudder. 

“Please.” There’s laughter in Peter’s voice. 

“I was there,” Stiles manages. “He said he’d help you if you didn’t hurt Scott.”

“Well, let’s call you my safety net, then.” 

Stiles looks up at Derek, sees his eyes trained on Peter’s claws, his face dripping with sweat, and his head moving to nod once. The fingers around Stiles’ neck loosen and drop and Stiles steps away quickly, rubbing a hand over his skin and then wiping the blood on his shirt. 

“Just take the wires off,” Derek says. “Please.”

Stiles’ head is throbbing. His legs wobbly as he walks next to Derek. He puts his hands on Derek’s side and picks at the corner of the tape holding the wires, feels the damp and heated flesh under his knuckles, and takes a breath. He can feel the erratic rise and fall of Derek’s breathing against his fingertips, he can hear Peter rustling somewhere behind him, moving tools around. 

He knows that as soon as he lets Derek go, nothing of the kid he knew once will be left – Peter will make sure of it. He wants to say something. Anything that will go through Derek’s thick head and convince him that there’s still something to be done. 

Stiles looks up, catches Derek’s eyes already gazing down at him, and opens his mouth. 

And that’s when Scott shows up and says what he has to say (nothing Stiles is really surprised about) and Peter growls and bails down the tunnel and Stiles rips the wires off before Derek wrenches himself off his cuffs and nearly crumples to the floor. 

He snaps the chains around his feet with a grunt and a hand around Stiles’ arm for support and then he’s stumbling over to Scott, asking how and Stiles is too distracted to hear the entire explanation (something about a spiral and Laura and where are Derek’s clothes how is he even walking what the hell just happened) but it’s not long before he’s being yanked forward and used as a human crutch as they rush back outside and after Peter. 

-

“How are you planning to fight Peter if you can barely even stay upright?” Stiles asks, straining under Derek’s nearly dead weight. 

“I just need to heal,” Derek says, close to Stiles’ ear. “We can’t let him get away.”

Scott is walking ahead of them towards the house. Stiles’ arms go all around Derek’s torso, shoulder shoved under his armpit and feet tangling with Derek’s uncoordinated legs. 

“And how long until you heal?” 

“I don’t know,” Derek breathes. He feels too hot against Stiles, like the time he sat in his room until the hole on his chest closed up. He’s radiating heat like he’s body is going into overdrive.

“Scott, dude, wait up a second,” Stiles calls and Scott looks over his shoulder.

“He’s getting away, Stiles.” 

“He’s not, he’s waiting for the Argents.”

Scott’s face falls and Stiles suddenly remembers Jackson and what he did at the dance.

“Allison—”

“She knows,” Scott cuts him off. “They all know.” 

“Scott….” Stiles doesn’t know what to say. Derek is tense next to him, completely still. They are almost at the house, just at the edge of the woods. 

“We’ll worry about that later,” Derek says, his voice tight. “We’re too exposed, we need to—”

Something makes him jerk onto Stiles, sending them both to the ground with a grunt. Scott makes a surprised noise somewhere above them and Stiles feels Derek jerk again on top of him, his nose squashed against Derek’s collarbone. 

“What the hell?” He asks, frantic, voice muffled and Derek shudders, takes a shaky breath. 

“ _Stay_.”

Stiles snakes his arms over Derek’s back and his fingers knock into something – a stick sprouting from Derek’s side, wet with what can only be blood. Derek makes a pained noise when Stiles finds the other one, accidentally hitting it too hard and making it cut deeper. 

_Arrows_ , he realizes.

Derek feels like a ton of rocks on top of him, cutting off his air and making it impossible for Stiles to move anywhere while someone showers them with freaking _arrows_.

“Derek, let me _up_.” He knows he sounds panicked, Derek can probably hear his heart going a hundred miles an hour, but he needs to— where’s Scott? He can’t hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears and Derek is _not moving_.

“Stay there,” he mutters, his voice barely audible and Stiles can feel the strength go out of him suddenly as he loses consciousness. He pushes Derek off and to the side, mindful of the arrows even if he’s instincts are telling him to _hurry_.

Scott is on the floor, blinking at nothing while Kate Argent and…is that Allison? They are crowding Scott, pointing weapons at him while he scrabbles on the ground.

“Shoot him,” Kate says and Stiles’ heart leaps to his throat. _He can heal_ , he thinks. _Unless they have wolfsbane bullets, he can heal_. But Allison is pointing a crossbow at Scott, not a gun, and she’s not shooting. 

“I thought we were just going to catch them,” she says, almost a question. 

“We did that, and now we’re going to kill them.”

Stiles rolls towards Derek, tasting bile as he grabs hold of one of the arrows and yanks. It takes three tries to get the first one out, but as soon as he does the wound can start to heal. He does the same with the other one and when he turns back around, there’s a gun pointing at his face. 

“Move,” Kate Argent says. A few paces behind her, Allison is staring, her eyes white all around. 

Stiles can’t talk and he doesn’t move. He’s not even sure he could, even if he had any intention of doing it. Behind him, Derek is stirring. He stays crouched there, looking down the barrel of Kate Argent’s gun, not quite believing yet that only two hours ago he was at a school dance. 

“Don’t think I won’t shoot you,” Kate warns him. Allison opens her mouth to speak, fear all over her face, and Scott calls out Stiles’ name and then there’s a bang, impossibly loud, and Stiles is sprawled on his side and Derek is bleeding all over again, one hand curled on Stiles’ shirt where he pulled him away. 

“Fuck! _Derek_.” He scrambles to his knees and hovers over Derek, who looks like he’s at his limit. His breathing is ragged, his eyes unfocussed. There’s a bullet hole in his stomach. 

Allison yelps and Stiles turns to see Kate shoving her away, striding to Scott and pointing the gun at him.

“No, no, no, wait!” Allison babbles and Stiles gets on his feet and stumbles to them, head swimming. 

The rumble of a car stops everyone. 

“Kate!” Someone shouts, but the glare of the car lights blinds Stiles. “What the hell are you doing?”

“My job,” Kate answers and Stiles eyes start to adjust. Chris Argent is standing in front of his SUV, gun in hand.

“He’s _sixteen_ ,” he snaps at his sister. 

“Believe me, he won’t be this sweet forever.” Stiles is afraid to move. He wonders what happens when a werewolf gets shot in the head. Does he heal even after dying? No. No, Laura didn’t heal, did she? Her wounds didn’t close up, her insides were spilling out of her. Stiles remembers. 

“We go by a code.”

Kate scoffs. “You’re so old fashioned.”

“Kate, put the gun down.” Chris Argent lifts his own gun up and points it at her. Everything is still. Allison is gaping at her father, Scott’s eyes won’t leave the gun in front of him and Stiles is stuck between his best friend and Derek, his feet frozen beneath him and refusing to move either way.

There’s a rustle, steps coming from the house’s decrepit porch, and then something big and growling leaps at him and throws him down. He scrambles back to Derek, listening to the various shouts of surprise behind him. And then there’s a shout and he looks over his shoulder, chest on the grass, as Peter, the Alpha, grabs Kate Argent and _throws_ her across the yard and into the house. 

Allison is on her feet and running after her aunt before Stiles can entirely process what’s happening, and when he tries to get up to follow, Derek shoots out a hand and stops him. 

“Wait,” he says as Stiles tries to yank himself free. Derek’s face changes, his fingers tightening. Stiles can hear the fabric of his sweatshirt stretch. “He killed her.”

“What? Who? Killed _who_?” Stiles tries to turn to look, pulling against Derek’s grip. If Allison is hurt, Scott…he doesn’t know what Scott will do.

“Kate,” Derek answers and pushes Stiles down. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Stiles grunts, everything hurts and he finds it’s not that easy to jump to his feet now that he’s resting on his back, his muscles aching, his head still swimming. 

Derek is walking towards the house, not completely steady himself, and Scott is already disappearing inside the front door. Stiles has to follow, but he’s more aware than ever that he’s not strong enough. That he’s in the way – that he can’t _help_. He lifts himself up anyway, gets on his knees and sees Chris Argent on the ground. 

Chris Argent the Hunter. He has to have more weapons on him. 

Stiles is getting to his feet when Allison comes running out of the house and crouches next to her father. 

“Allison,” Stiles calls, taking a few steps towards her when yard is bathed in light again. Another car is screeching to a halt next to Argent’s. 

A few minutes later, when Scott comes flying out of the house to land sprawled on the ground, Stiles and Jackson are ready. Peter comes out after Scott on all fours, snarling, and Stiles tightens his grip on the flask in his hand. Derek is not coming out. 

Stiles grits his teeth and throws, putting all the strength he has left in it. 

Later, when Peter is not even done burning up and Scott and Allison are already putting on a show, Allison’s father unconscious not five feet from them, Stiles falls back on the grass. His legs have finally given up on him. He watches as Peter finally collapses right at the edge of the yard, half worried that they will be responsible for a forest fire, on top of everything else. But the flames quietly go out as Peter lies there, the smell of his burning flesh hot on Stiles’ nose. 

Jackson is pacing close to his car, muttering under his breath.

Stiles only sees Derek because he’s waiting for him. He sees him stumbling out of the house and stopping to look at what remains of his uncle for a second. When he starts walking towards the corpse, Stiles wants to call out to him. Spare him the sight. But his vocal cords seem to have decided to retire for the evening, and all he can manage is a hoarse croak.

Derek crouches down next to Peter, and that’s when Stiles knows he’s still alive. He can hear him talking to Derek, voice too faint to make out words. Scott seems to hear, too, and he turns away from Allison to stare. All of them see Derek lifting his hand in the air, his claws out. Scott starts to protest when he realizes what’s going on and Derek hesitates only a second before he swipes.

Stiles closes his eyes, cursing in his head. He knows why Derek did it – he can’t risk leaving Scott in charge. But he wishes Derek would have explained before going through with it. Maybe save Scott the pain of having the cure snatched away from him. 

When he opens his eyes again, Stiles sees Derek looking at him. His eyes are burning red. 

-

Derek disappears into the forest right before the rest of the hunters reach the house. They’ll clean up, they say, and the kids should go home. That includes Scott, much to Stiles’ relief. Jackson is a nervous wreck, Allison is pale and shaken and Scott looks ready to burst into tears, so Stiles is the designated driver. 

Afterwards, when he’s back in his room, door closed and window unlocked, he drops into bed and sleeps for seventeen hours straight. 

-

He doesn’t try to find Derek. He’s tired of chasing after him. He worries about Lydia instead. About when she’ll wake up and why she isn’t healing. About what she is, that the bite didn’t turn or kill her. He worries about his dad, and the pile of unsolvable work that was thrown on his desk after Kate’s body was found. About Scott and his insistence on seeing Allison, even after her father threatened him away from her. He tries to worry about school and lacrosse.

He leaves the little latch on his window untouched, it’s useless and setting it doesn’t help him sleep anyway.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, waiting to see a shape silhouetted through the glass and never finding one, he blames the nightmares, rolls over and closes his eyes again.

**Author's Note:**

> Derek is away for three years after the fire, instead of six. He's three years older than Stiles and Scott, so around 19 or 20 (hey, if Danny is sixteen, then Derek can be twenty) when we get to the beginning of season 1.


End file.
